


what do we call what we have but love?

by vintagedean



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Car Sex, Come Sharing, Come Swallowing, Daddy Issues, Daddy Kink, Dubious Consent, Incest, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Parent/Child Incest, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-29
Updated: 2020-12-07
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:21:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 23,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27766672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vintagedean/pseuds/vintagedean
Summary: He loves John, as a son of course. But he also loves John as a partner in Sam’s care. Sam can’t see it because he’s young and he’s angry, but Dean needs to work with John to keep him safe. He can’t have John on the outs with him. Because what Sam misses in all his anger and frustration is that everything that John and Dean do is for Sam, together. Sam is all they have left after Mary. So while he resents the feminization of Sam calling him John’s wife, he guesses it’s not totally wrong. The overlap in roles between what Mary did then for John and what Dean does now is considerable, and he’s okay with that.“We need more silver bullets,” he says quietly as he zips up the weapons bag. He looks back at John, who’s naked, preparing to shower. Dean can see his dick, half-hard, in the weak light of the nightstand lamp. Sam sleeps on, leaving Dean to witness his father like this alone. Tired and bruised, and like any other man after a hard day, just looking to relieve a little tension.John pulls at himself lazily, he’s not paying attention to Dean, really. “I need to stop by Bobby’s anyway. He can set us up.” Then he walks into the bathroom.
Relationships: Dean Winchester/John Winchester
Comments: 36
Kudos: 131





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> um. idk what this is. but if there's anyone else out there who may find something redeeming in it, well. this is for you.
> 
> let me know if it needs other tags!
> 
> eta: I made a Tumblr if anyone is interested? find me over there @vintagedean. im hoping to get writing prompts and to talk head canons if anyone is down for that. but we'll see!

Dean and John have a strange, and strangled, relationship. They both know it, and it complicates every moment that they spend together. Sometimes Dean wishes he felt as singularly about John as Sam does, but then those sweet afternoons when Sam’s still at school and they don’t have a hunt, and John let’s Dean day drink with him as they watch game shows on shitty motel television sets, and there’s a domestic sort of peace in the quiet of it all; well, then Dean’s glad he’s not so clouded with disappointment and hurt that he can’t appreciate that sometimes his father is just a man, doing his best for his family. Sometimes he’s just a man who likes to watch T.V. and be lazy on the couch.

Dean tries to keep this version of John in his heart, and to be extra tentative to John’s needs on those days that he makes an appearance. He picks up John’s favorite foods, makes sure he gets Sam on time to and from school, and tidies up the motel without a word so that both Sam and John have one less thing on their minds than the mess. 

Sometimes John says nothing about Dean’s behavior, but more often than not he’ll put a large hand high up on Dean’s shoulder, thumb grazing his clavicle, and offer a gruff but sincere, “Thank you, Dean,” with a smile so soft Dean can hardly believe this is the same man who beat him black and blue that time Sam disappeared to Arizona for two weeks. 

“You’ve got to get away from him,” Sam had whispered into the dark of their shared motel bed his first night back while John snored a few feet away on his own. He’d seen Dean’s split lip, his black eye. The other bruises on his chest as he’d changed into his sleepshirt. And he hadn’t bought Dean’s story about a hunt gone wrong, not even for a minute. 

“Go to sleep, Sam,” he’d replied, weary. He turned over so he was facing John instead of Sam. He’d rather look at the rise and fall of John’s chest than Sam’s despairing face. “Just go the fuck to sleep.”

But it’s been a month since Sam’s escapade, and everything’s gone back to the same tenuous state it was before. John and Sam fight. Dean tries to mediate. Dean takes John’s side and tries to distract their father so Sam can storm off and clear his head alone. And then Dean tiptoes around John while the older man caustically spits orders and complaints about how he and Dean haven’t raised Sam right. How he doesn’t know what gets into that boy, that Dean needs to do more to get Sam in line, because that’s his fucking _job_ , to protect Sam and get it through his head he needs to listen to John or he’s going to end up dead.

And Dean takes it, head bowed and eyes averted until John wears himself out. Until John takes a shot of knock-off Jack Daniels and pulls Dean to him roughly and holds him. 

“I know you’re doing the best you can,” John tells him. “I know you understand why we do this.”

“I do,” Dean says, voice thick. “I love you, Dad, and I love Sam. I’m trying to help him understand.” 

“I know,” John says, pulling away. “He’s got too much of me in him.” Then he looks at Dean with too-sad eyes. “And you have too much of Mary.”

Sam’s nightmares start his senior year. They’re silent terrors, whatever they’re about (Sam refuses to say), but they cause Sam to kick and strike in his sleep. Dean, who shares the bed with him, is an easy target for the blows. The first one that lands has Dean upright with a gun pointed at Sam in two seconds flat, and as he fully comes to with a shout, waking Sam and John in the process, he’s so distubred by the look on Sam’s face as stares down the barrel of Dean’s gun, that Dean flings the gun away from him like a scalding coal. 

“Motherfucker,” he says low. “Motherfucker.”

John is there on the bed with them then. He has his hands on Dean’s face, grabbing Dean’s gaze with his own. John holds him there, grip firm but gentle while Sam watches them both, still scared and confused by the whole thing. 

“He hit me in his sleep, and I just,” says Dean, breathless. His one job is to _protect Sammy_ , and he just almost blew his brains out. He feels the panic well inside him. 

“It’s okay,” John says softly, the softest he’s ever been with either of them since before Mary died. “Deep breaths, Dean.”

He knows it’s because he’s tired, because he’s just come out of his sleep in the roughest possible way, but Dean feels himself start to separate from his body. He can feel the discordance in his chest, like he’s breathing and _not_ breathing at the same time. He can feel John’s hands on his cheeks, but only faintly, because this isn’t his body anymore. He can’t even begin to look at Sam. Sam who he almost--

“Dean,” John says firmer. Then, the smack lands. 

It’s not a real blow. More of a swat. But it hurts enough to bring Dean back to himself a little. 

“I’m sorry,” he finally says. He looks at Sam. “I’m so sorry, Sammy.”

“It’s okay, Dean,” Sam says, his voice strange to Dean’s ears. “I’m sorry I hit you.”

John let’s go of Dean. “You’re with me the rest of the night,” he says to Dean. He goes back to his bed. “Come on, Dean,” he orders. 

Dean follows, because that’s what he does when John gives an order. 

He looks over at Sam and watches as his younger brother picks up his gun from where it landed at the edge of the bed, and slips it back under Dean’s abandoned pillow. 

“It’s okay, Dean,” Sam says again. “I’m okay.”

Dean’s eyes close against the guilt. 

“Both of you, go to sleep,” John snaps.

Dean knows he’s mad at him. That he failed him when he pulled that gun on Sam. His father doesn’t trust him to protect his brother anymore, and honestly, Dean’s not sure he can trust himself either. 

In the morning, things are tense. 

Dean runs through his morning checklist--it’s not long, mostly just get Sam his coffee and make sure he gets to school on time--and tries not to think about the night before. 

“Listen, Dean,” Sam says, but Dean won’t let him finish.

“There’s nothing to say, Sam,” Dean interrupts, cold. “It was an accident. We’re good.”

It’s not true and they both know it, but Sam knows Dean well enough to drop it, just as Dean hoped he would. 

“Have a good day,” Dean tells him as he gets out of the car. “Dad and I are going to take care of that nest today, so you may need to take the bus back.”

“Fine, Dean,” Sam says. “Whatever you say.”

Dean watches him walk away, heart heavy. Then he turns the car around to head home and face the music with John. 

John only has one thing to say on the matter:

“You never pull a gun on your brother again, you hear me?” 

“Yes, sir,” answers Dean with a swallow. 

“And you sleep with me for the rest of the week.”

This pill is a little harder to swallow. “Yes, sir,” he manages to grit out.

Dean isn’t sure if it’s a punishment, a precaution, or both, but he knows there’s no arguing either way. 

John grabs the bag he’d been checking at the end of his bed. “You ready to go?”

A third and final, “Yes, sir.”  
  


They don’t make it back before Sam’s school day ends. They don’t make it back until well into the evening, after Sam’s already gone to bed. There’s a pizza box on the table with a few slices left, and Dean hands the bigger one to John before grabbing the last one for himself. 

John murmurs a quiet, “Thanks,” as he starts undressing between bites. This is an easy routine between them, a scenario they’ve played out a hundred times over after all these years hunting together. John strips down to his underwear, shoving clothes in his laundry bag, while Dean does a final weapons check and cleaning. They may be parent and child, but this lifestyle has robbed them of more than one boundary, and these small intimacies have been commonplace for the pair of them for years. 

Sam doesn’t like it, always the outsider, only changing in the bathroom when John is around. But Dean isn’t bothered. He’s stitched up John so many times, in so many places, seen him in so many states of undress and nakedness, with John able to say the same for Dean, that it hardly registers. 

“You’re like his wife instead of his son,” Sam had observed in disgust once. “The way you take care of him. Honestly, the way you take care of me. You’re not my mom, Dean.”

It had hurt to hear Sam say it. He knew Sam was trying to offend Dean into a reaction, to offend Dean into making some distance between himself and his father, because Sam loves Dean and hates how John treats him. But this is Dean’s life. All he has is John and Sam, and his relationship with John is his own, even if Sam doesn’t understand it. Dean does what he does to keep them together as best he can. And he doesn’t have any other choice. 

He loves John, as a son of course. But he also loves John as a partner in Sam’s care. Sam can’t see it because he’s young and he’s angry, but Dean needs to work with John to keep him safe. He can’t have John on the outs with him. Because what Sam misses in all his anger and frustration is that everything that John and Dean do is for Sam, together. Sam is all they have left after Mary. So while he resents the feminization of Sam calling him John’s wife, he guesses it’s not totally wrong. The overlap in roles between what Mary did then for John and what Dean does now is considerable, and he’s okay with that. 

“We need more silver bullets,” he says quietly as he zips up the weapons bag. He looks back at John, who’s naked, preparing to shower. Dean can see his dick, half-hard, in the weak light of the nightstand lamp. Sam sleeps on, leaving Dean to witness his father like this alone. Tired and bruised, and like any other man after a hard day, just looking to relieve a little tension. 

John pulls at himself lazily, he’s not paying attention to Dean, really. “I need to stop by Bobby’s anyway. He can set us up.” Then he walks into the bathroom. 

He shuts the door behind him so Dean doesn’t have to listen to him come in the shower, and Dean looks down at his own crotch where his dick lays uninterested. He’s not going to have enough hot water to wash himself and jerk off after John, and he’s not sure it’s worth trying. He thinks maybe tomorrow night he can go into town and find someone to get laid with then. 

Dean knows, objectively, this isn’t normal behavior for men in their line of work. He’s always had the sense if anyone knew the degree to which he and John flaunt their sexual behavior, John would probably be arrested. Dean, being over eighteen now, probably would too. But it’s not like they’re _doing_ anything. John doesn’t even _try_. Dean knows a lot of parents get naked in front of their kids when they’re young and their kids don’t know any different. It’s just like he and John never grew out of that. They never lost that _trust._ Dean and Sam have seen each other naked plenty of times without Dean worrying, so why should he worry now just because it’s John? At least, that’s where he lands when he ends up thinking about John in circles. 

He always comes back to, _He’s my father, and my partner, and I love him._ He just makes sure Sam doesn’t know.

John comes out with a towel around his waist and jerks his head back towards the bathroom. “All yours.”

Dean nods, starting to undress himself. His boots come off, and then his shirt, and his pants. He brings everything around to the other side of John’s bed where the laundry bag they share is. They wash their things together because they’re normally blood-stained, and Sam needs his school clothes to stay stain-free. Dean tries so hard to keep Sam clean, even though he’s got the exact same skillset Dean has. After putting his shirt and pants in the bag, Dean sits on John’s bed to take off his socks, standing once more to slip out of his boxers. 

“We need to do laundry tomorrow, too,” he murmurs. 

“I know,” agrees John. 

In the shower, Dean washes himself quickly, ready as hell to sleep. He doesn’t bother touching himself--he’ll save it for tomorrow and make it feel real good--but his eyes catch on a spot of white against the off-color shower stall wall. This is how he knows John’s tired, that he wasn’t able to properly rinse off the wall after finishing off. Dean rolls his eyes and throws water against the missed cum until it slides down into the tub and swirls away down the drain. Sam would lose his shit if he saw that in the morning while getting ready for school. 

He steps out of the shower only five or so minutes later, on the verge of crashing. He towels himself off roughly and reenters the main part of the room. John is already under the covers dressed in his boxers and last remaining clean tee shirt. Dean follows suit, and then slips under the covers beside John. The bed is too small for the both of them--neither of them on the petit side--but it’s better than risking hurting Sam again. That’s Dean’s final thought before he drifts into sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> eh, here's another chapter. idky im playing coy.
> 
> cw: dean's gonna hook up with an ofc in this one.

On the road the next morning, everyone’s mood’s a little lighter. It’s Saturday, which means Dean and Sam can go with John to Bobby’s. Normally John would keep Sam and Dean together back wherever they’re last hunt was so Sam could stay in school, but Bobby’s been asking after the both of them and they were only a half-day’s drive away. Dean’s going to call Sam in sick to school Monday so they can drive back then, giving them a couple days in Sioux Falls. Sam loves Bobby more than just about anything, so for John to let him come has earned him a fair amount of goodwill from the youngest Winchester. 

Dean loves Bobby too, and he’s looking almost as forward to seeing him as Sam. He sits next to John, singing along to his cassettes, and even Sam gets in on it when one of his favorites comes on. It’s a good day and a nice drive, and Dean basks in the momentary harmony they experience as they drive down the highway in John’s Impala. 

They arrive at Bobby’s just in time for dinner. They all cart their things to their rooms upstairs while Bobby finishes in the kitchen, and it’s only once Dean’s standing between the room he normally shares with Sam and the room his father usually keeps alone, that it occurs to him he should have kept his bag downstairs. 

“I’ll head back down to the couch,” he says.

“This is so stupid, Dean,” says Sam. “I didn’t even have a nightmare last night.”

“Sam,” his father warns. The decision was already made, in his mind, Dean knows. To Dean, John says only, “It’s your call. Doesn’t make a difference to me.”

To his other side, Sam rolls his eyes, but says nothing.

Dean sighs. “I guess a bed beats a couch.”

He and John enter the room, tossing their bags onto the bed. Dean opens his up, wanting to get ready for a night out after dinner is done. He checks at the bottom for condoms, but can’t find any. 

“Shit,” he says under his breath. He’ll have to stop at a convenience store on the way to the bar.

“What?” John says.

Dean looks at him. It’s not a secret they both like to go get themselves a fuck now and then, but they don’t normally name it directly. He clears his throat. “I was thinking of going out tonight, but I’m, uh. I’m out of condoms.”

John snickers. He starts digging through his own bag until he produces a couple little foil packets. He tosses them to Dean. “Think those’ll fit?”

Dean scoffs and grabs his dick through his pants. “You know they will,” he tells John, who snorts. 

“Like father like son,” John mutters, and Dean tries not to think about that too much. “It’s not a bad idea, though,” John considers. 

Dean can see the line he’s not supposed to cross like a physical thing between them. He also knows John is a lot easier to deal with after he’s fucked someone, and Sam could use a break. Still, he recognizes this isn’t normal. 

He licks his lips. “I, uh, I noticed it’s been a while since you got some. I’m sure you could find someone, easy.” He shrugs, laughing a little to cover his nerves. “We both know you’re packing.”

John looks at him. He looks at him for so long Dean starts bracing himself for a beating, because he can’t understand why John’s gone so quiet. He’s about to apologize, beg John to forget he said anything, when he finally speaks. 

“Maybe I will,” is all he says. Then he clears his throat. “I doubt you’ll have a hard time of it, either.”

Dean isn’t sure what he did to deserve such a reprieve, but he feels his relief like a weight off his chest. 

“Yeah, I do all right,” he says with a cocky grin, flirtatious almost. _You’re like his wife_ he hears Sam say. 

Dean doesn’t know if John feels as charged as he does in the small room, talking about sex and the size of their dicks, but he’s grateful when John shuts down the conversation and insists they head downstairs.

Dinner is enjoyable, everyone on their best behavior so they don’t inspire any tongue lashings from Bobby, who historically has trucked with none of their bullshit, but especially not John Winchester’s. And after dinner, in the living room, Dean sits on the small couch with John, John’s arm thrown back behind him, and he watches with such a deep contentment as Bobby plays twenty-one questions with Sam about school. He can feel an equal satisfaction rolling off John as Sam enthusiastically talks about his classes and his teachers. He likes this new school a lot, and it’s obvious he’s hoping John will let him finish out the year and graduate there. 

Dean sneaks look at John, who sneaks looks at Dean, and this is what Dean knows Sam doesn’t see. John is so fucking proud of his son. He loves Sammy so fucking much, and if Sam can’t see it, then Dean will just have to let John know that _he_ does. He knows what John is doing for their family, for Sam. He gets it. For a brief moment, John rests his hand on Dean’s neck, his thumb caressing the shell of his ear. But then Bobby looks over to shoot them some smart-ass remark about Sam missing some dance, and John’s hand disappears like smoke. 

Around 9:00 p.m., Dean makes his excuses and heads into town. He doesn’t know if John makes his own escape or not, but he leaves the Impala in case he wants to. The walk to the bar he likes isn’t so far, and if he’s going to be drinking it’s better he doesn’t drive anyway. 

He finds a spot at the bar and starts slow with a beer, scoping out the crowd. He pays the women and men equal attention, though he knows he’ll probably end up with a woman. It’s less of a risk to stick with the ladies in a city like Sioux Falls, and honestly, Dean wants the easy softness of a wet pussy. 

About forty-five minutes into making eyes at various women across the building, one of them makes the short trek to join Dean at the bar. She lets Dean buy her a drink before she starts running her hand up and down his thigh, sliding closer to the growing bulge in his pants with every moment. 

He leans in close to murmur in her ear, “Do you have somewhere we can go?”

“I have a car,” she answers with a grin.

“Perfect,” says Dean.

She’s parked down a nearby, unlit sidestreet, like she knew she’d be needing some privacy. Dean figures she probably did. They crawl into her backseat, and Dean takes a moment to be grateful for a life on the road, because this is exactly the kind of sex he excels at. She’s apparently experienced too, as she easily manoeuvres Dean so he’s on his back, allowing her to quickly access the front of his jeans. 

She’s good at this. Really good at this. Dean lets himself be overwhelmed by the way her tongue swirls over his slit. Her hand works his shaft while her lips kiss and suck at the head, and he has to make himself think of other things if he doesn’t want to come too soon. As his mind flits through various potential mood-killers like an anti-arousal rolodex, he lands on John last night, hand on his dick, urging it to full hardness right where Dean could see. Did he want Dean to see? Did he want Dean to--

“ _Stop!_ ” he says to himself and the nameless woman giving him head. 

She comes off with an obscene pop. “All good?”

Dean tries to laugh it off. “Too good,” he tells her. “It’s been a while for me; I just don’t want the show to end too soon.”

“Okay, in that case, sit up.” 

Dean does as instructed, and with only a little awkward shuffling, he’s sitting upright against the seat. He watches the woman reach into her purse for a condom of her own. 

“You want to put it on, or me?”

“You,” he says, still a little breathless about--he stops himself from going there on purpose. 

She makes quick work of the condom, and then quicker work of getting her panties off. 

“Ready?” she asks. 

“Ready,” he answers.

Oh, this is even better than the blowjob. It’s been too long since Dean got to bury himself inside a woman’s heat, and he savors the pull of her pussy against him. He can hear the wet sound of her lifting herself up and down on his dick, and it’s _everything_. Thoughts of John’s hand on his cock, his cum in the shower, fade away as Dean pulls the woman closer to him so he can tug down the top of her dress and her lacy bra and slip one of her nipples into his mouth. 

She moans above him, letting him know when to switch to the other breast, when to move up to her neck, and then she’s shuddering dramatically on top of him. Dean feels her spasm around him, but he’s not ready to stop fucking into her, not yet ready to cum himself. She goes lax above him, still moaning as Dean thrusts, and finally he accepts if he’s going to come from this--as amazing as this feels--he’s going to need something else. 

So he lets himself think about last night. He lets himself think about John’s hand masturbating himself in front of Dean. In his head, John drags it out for Dean more than he actually had. In his head, John brings himself to full attention right where Dean can see. He lets out a breathy sigh as he squeezes the tip, knowing Dean can hear him. All Dean has to do is think about John’s cum in the shower, the cream of it against the wall, and he’s coming into the woman on top of him. 

“Son of a bitch,” he says as he trembles into her. “Son of a fucking bitch.”

She laughs above him. “You’re good at this.”

He laughs too, though internally he’s losing it. “Right back at you.”

She slips off of Dean, allowing him to roll off and tie off the condom, and then hands him an empty fast food cup to put it in. 

“I could use another drink, but I don’t think I could make it back to the bar,” he says, still processing. 

“Babe, I got you.” She reaches down into the foot well and pulls out a bottle of Jack. 

“You’re a goddess,” says Dean, and that makes her laugh. He throws back a few swallows, then one more for good measure.

“You good, cowboy?” she asks. 

“Yeah, I’m real good.”

She cocks her head at him. “Think you could be good to go again in a few?”

Dean shuts his eyes. “Give me five.”

“How about three,” she counters. “Then you can eat me out until you're hard again.”

He chuckles. “Deal.”

She holds him to it, and a few minutes later she’s pushing and pulling them into a better position for Dean to press his tongue against her clit. 

By the sounds she makes, Dean hasn’t lost his touch, and it feels good to make someone else moan like that. It takes everything he can to keep thoughts of John away as they reposition for their second round, but somehow Dean manages. She faces the window this time, with Dean entering from behind, and as he thrusts up into her he keeps his thoughts focused on the slap of his groin against her ass and the feel of her cunt against his cock. 

If he doesn’t come as satisfyingly as the first time, well, that’s only because the second time’s never as good. 

He doesn’t linger after their second round, just takes another shot straight from the bottle and then plants a kiss on her lips before he slips out of the over-hot car and starts the walk back to Bobby’s. 

He’s a little drunk from the whiskey, but the cool spring air helps bring him back to himself. He feels better than he has in ages--weird John thoughts aside--and is looking forward to a lazy day around the scrap yard tomorrow helping Bobby with some of his work while John restocks his arsenal and Sam spends time in town, doing whatever it is nerds like him do. 

Walking into Bobby’s, feeling the warmth reenter his skin, Dean realizes he’s maybe a little drunker than he thought. He considers avoiding John altogether by sleeping on the couch, but he feels good and loose and just reckless enough to want to sleep beside his father despite having come to the thought of his cock. Like he’ll be able to confirm if his thoughts about John were really _about_ John, or just his brain making a connection between one experience of arousal and another. So he makes his way carefully up the stairs and opens the door to the room he’s sharing with John as carefully as he can. He’s not even thinking about showering or brushing his teeth; he’s too focused on _bed_ and _John_ and _it’s fine it’s fine it’s fine_ that he makes straight for the mattress, where he sits to take off his boots and his shirt. 

With the privacy of a door, John doesn’t even bother with a shirt, sleeping only in his underwear, and to Dean's over-sensitized skin, he can’t really imagine anything better. He crawls into bed as carefully as possible, not wanting to disturb John, and then sighs in contentment. Which is when John wakes up.

“Mm, Dean?” he says, voice thick with sleep. 

“Yeah,” Dean says, blissed out and exhausted. 

Then John shifts, leaning up on his arm and facing him. “What the fuck, Dean?”

Dean is suddenly awake. “What?” he questions, sitting up. 

“Take a fucking shower,” hisses John. “Wash your fucking mouth out. You smell like cum and cheap whiskey.”

Dean feels like he’s been doused in water. “I’m sorry,” he mumbles as he gets out of bed. 

“What the _fuck_ , Dean,” John repeats. 

In the shower, the shame hits. Shame for going out, shame for thinking of John, shame for coming home. Shame for being _dirty_ , and _bad_ , and _wrong_. John’s never called him these things, but Dean’s always suspected that’s what he thought. He tries so hard to take care of Sam and John to make up for being a failure, but this is always where he ends up. Disappointing John. Dean is supposed to keep them all together, and he can’t do that if John wants nothing to do with him. 

He lets the hot water scald his skin and brushes his teeth twice. He hopes it’s enough. He comes back to the room, afraid of what version of John will greet him, but finds his father is back under the covers with his back to Dean. He puts on a new pair of boxers and gets back into bed himself, though he no longer feels on the edge of sleep.

Again, John turns over to face Dean, not asleep after all. “You ever come into my bed smelling like someone else’s pussy again, I’ll throttle you.”

Dean swallows. Whispers, “Yes, sir.”

And then John turns away again. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *jean ralphio voice* escalaaaaaatiooon!!!

In the morning, Dean wakes up to the empty silence of John’s disappointment, his father long gone from the bed and the room, and Dean dreads facing him the rest of the day. Still, he makes himself get out of bed, glad he isn’t hungover, and dresses for his time in the scrap yard. 

Downstairs he finds the other two Winchesters and Bobby seated at the kitchen table, and the novelty of Dean being the last one to wake isn’t lost on him.

“There’s our lost boy,” says Bobby, standing to get him a cup of coffee. 

“Yeah, since when do _you_ sleep in?” says Sam. 

“Well, a guy needs his beauty sleep sometimes,” quips Dean, eyes flitting briefly to John. 

“Dean had a late night,” John says, tone not quite matching the levity of the others. 

“Sowing your wild oats,” says Bobby, handing Dean his coffee.

Sam grimaces. “Gross.”

“Would everyone just stop talking about me,” Dean mutters before taking a drink. 

The rest of the morning passes uneventfully. Before long, John dismisses himself to rifle through Bobby’s stores, and Sam asks if he can borrow a junker to drive to the bookstore in town. Bobby stands up and walks over to a rack of different keys to the cars in his possession that are still road-ready. He tosses Sam a set and reminds him to fill up the tank on the way back, then he sits back down at the table. 

He waits for Sam to shut the front door before asking, “How’s it going with John?”

Dean sighs. “Fine, Bobby. We’re all good.”

He doesn’t look convinced. “He put a hand on you since Flagstaff?”

“No, of course not,” Dean says. “We’re good, really. And you heard Sam, he’s good too.”

“Except the nightmares, you mean?”

“So you heard about that.”

Bobby gives him a look. “Of course I did. And that you pulled a gun on him too.”

“Jesus, Bobby, it wasn’t like that.” Dean stands from the table. “And if you wanted to talk about that, you should have just said, _fuck._ ”

Bobby stands too. “I may not be your daddy, but you don’t take that tone with me either. I’m checking in with you because I give a shit about you, and if you need my help I need to know.”

The fight leaves him. “I know, Bobby. But really, it’s okay. It was a misunderstanding.” They stand in an uncomfortable silence. “Can I go out and fix up some cars now?”

Bobby holds the silence a moment longer. “Go,” he finally says, and Dean scatters. 

In the garage, lying under a car with tools in hand, Dean lets his mind drift over the night before. The shame of it is still hot under his skin, but there’s a new layer of it to contend with. If Sam knew what Dean had done, he’d never forgive him. Sam’s already made it clear he thinks Dean’s relationship with John is fucked, but if he knew he’d thought about their father while literally fucking, he’d run away all over again and never let himself be found.

Dean doesn’t really know what to think of himself either. He doesn’t think he really wants to have sex with John. He tries to imagine it, just to see what happens, like touching a fresh burn to see if it still hurts. But he can’t manage it. He feels fucking ridiclous, the idea too absurd. So Dean decides to drop it. He decides to chock it up to the blurred lines between the two of them. Father and son, but also shared caretakers for Sam. He and John are adults, and they have needs, and he doesn’t understand why it has to be a bad thing that they’re able to talk about those needs frankly. 

Dean thinking of John fondling himself wasn’t even really about John, he concludes. He was horny and desperate, and it’s not so unusual that in the midst of one sexual act, his mind would supply an image of another more recent one he’d observed. It didn’t have to be that complicated. Dean lets this understanding be the end of it, and refocuses on the car in front of him until Sam shows up a few hours later to bug him before lunch. 

“How was the bookstore?” he asks, rolling out from under the truck he’s working on.

“Good,” says Sam. “Picked up a couple comics.”

“Nice.” Dean offers his knuckles, which Sam returns. 

“Hey, can I ask you something you’re not going to like?”

Dean frowns and shuts his eyes. He’s so tired of talking about John Winchester.

“Dad and I are fine,” he answers preemptively. 

Sam shakes his head. “I don’t know, Dean. Things don’t seem fine.”

“Well, then tell me, Sam. How do they seem to you? Are you going to call me John’s wife again?”

He hates taking this tone with Sam, but this weekend at Bobby’s is shaping up to be more of a disaster than a vacation. Dean just wants for everyone to lay off of him. 

“Dean,” says Sam, sounding hurt. “I’m just worried about you. Dad seemed kind of tense with you this morning. I know him well enough to tell.”

Dean has to shake his head. He laughs bitterly. “Well, worry about yourself, Sam. I can handle my shit just fine.” Then he storms off, throwing down the tools as he goes. 

He can hear Sam calling after him, but he doesn’t stop. He stomps his way into the house, stomps his way past Bobby and John, and right upstairs to use the shower. He wants to wash the morning away and all its vague accusations and suspicions, right alongside the engine oil and grit. He stays in the shower too long, knowing people will suspect him of doing something else, but he doesn’t care. He’s enjoying the time to himself too much. When he finally does reenter the bedroom, John is already there, sitting on the bed. 

“Dad,” Dean says with a swallow. 

“Dean,” John replies softly. “Do we need to talk?”

“No, sir,” says Dean. “I just want to get dressed.”

“Okay,” says John. He leans over the bed to pick up Dean’s bag, digging through it to find Dean something to wear. He pulls out a pair of boxers, a pair of sweats, and a tee shirt. “Go ahead.”

 _This_ Dean thinks _is why everyone is worried about us_. Every lie he told himself from the morning, about how he and John are fine, they just have a unique relationship, flies out of his head. He knows this isn’t normal. Sons don’t normally dress in front of their fathers this way. And he wants to _say_ something to John. To ask him, _Why is this happening between us?_

_Abuse_ his mind supplies. _Stockholm Syndrome_. But he doesn’t think John started this alone. Dean is twenty one years old, and capable of telling his father no. He doesn’t think John would punish him for saying _stop_ ; he doesn’t make these choices out of fear. He looks at John looking at him and doesn’t feel scared, he just wants to understand. But he doesn’t know how to ask, so instead, Dean just drops the towel. _It’s only weird if you make it weird_ he tells himself. 

He waits for John to look directly at his cock, which is slowly swelling, the tension of their proximity completely electric. But he doesn’t. Instead, John takes the boxers he chose and holds them open, leaning down so Dean can step into them. Then he pulls them up, the fabric dragging against Dean’s skin in a long torturous slide towards his waist. When he gets to Dean’s dick, he pulls the fabric away from Dean so he can slip the material over his now near-full erection. Then he takes Dean’s cock in one of his hands--Dean hissing at the contact--and tucks it into the boxers. 

“Dad,” Dean says, breathless.

But John doesn’t answer. He just grabs the sweats and does the same thing, putting them on for Dean. It’s almost sweet, even if John _does_ palm Dean’s dick casually as he adjusts his clothes. The touches are perfunctory, John’s hand never lingers. But Dean hardens fully all the same, hips stuttering towards John’s face as he pulls Dean’s shirt down, smoothing it over Dean’s back, and his hands graze the top of Dean’s ass. 

“You should take care of this,” he murmurs to Dean, his hands on Dean’s waist, thumbs drawing small circles only a few inches away on either side of his cock. “I want to say something when you come back, and I don’t want you distracted.”

“I’m fine,” says Dean. “It’ll go down.”

But then John grabs him through the pants and _squeezes_.

“What the fuck,” Dean spits out, as he lurches onto John’s shoulder at the sudden pleasure. 

The words seem to shake John back to himself. He let’s go of Dean’s dick and then pushes him away. “I told you to take care of that,” he says. He doesn’t sound as sure as he normally does. 

Dean wants to refuse again, or maybe ask John to come with him. He doesn’t know. The confusion is overwhelming. 

“Yes, sir,” he finally says, stepping back on unsteady legs. 

In the bathroom, Dean positions himself over the toilet and takes his cock in his hand. It’s already weeping, a small wet spot dotting the front of his sweats. He masturbates himself as quickly as he can, his mind focused on the sudden roughness of John palming him through the material. About John touching him bare as he tucked Dean into his boxers. He’d been so close to John’s face, he could have taken Dean in his mou—

He comes directly into the toilet, a few ropes of cum dripping down his hand. He wishes faintly that John could see. What would he do? But then Dean remembers that John wants to talk, so he quickly cleans himself up with some dampened toilet paper, and tucks himself away. 

Back in their room, Dean’s head does feel a little clearer. He joins John on the bed, grabbing the pair of socks John’s put out for him, and looks at his father expectantly. 

“Better?” asks John. 

Dean’s cheeks heat. “Yeah.”

“Good. Listen, I know Sam gives you a hard time about us, about how I talk to you,” says John as Dean puts on the socks. “And I know that’s hard for you.”

Dean shakes his head. “I don’t care what Sam thinks.”

“Dean,” John says, voice firm. Calling Dean out on his lie. 

He tries again. “Sam is never going to understand what we have. He’s too mad at you. You’re too hard on him.” He looks sideways at John, expecting a correction. John doesn’t offer one, so Dean continues. “But I know you better than he does. So, sure. I care that Sam is kind of a jerk about...us. That I listen to you, that I do as you say. But I’m good with us, so it doesn’t matter. To me, anyway.”

“I don’t mean to be so hard on him,” says John. He says it quietly, like he’s confessing a secret.

“But he doesn’t listen to what’s best for him, I know,” Dean soothes. He risks a hand on John’s thigh. His father is so particular about touch. “But Dad, you know he doesn’t understand it like we do. He’s only ever had this life. No mom, no loss. To him, we’re just dragging him around for the fun of it. I mean, not really. He knows we do good. But it doesn’t click to him the same way it does to us.”

John shakes his head. “You’re so much like her, it hurts sometimes.”

Dean knows he’s talking about Mary. “I’m sorry,” he says, taking back his hand.

“No,” says John. “It’s not a bad thing. She always knew how to talk me down, too.”

John doesn’t talk about Mary much. Usually only after he’s been drinking, which he hasn’t been today. He’s being vulnerable all on his own, and that fact makes Dean’s breath hitch. He may not fully understand the intimacy he shares with his father, but he knows it’s born out of the both of them loving each other, loving Sam, and loving Mary. 

“It’s been a shitty day,” Dean says, placing his hand back on John’s thigh. He’s relieved when John places his own hand over Dean’s. “A shitty year. A shitty decade. But let’s go downstairs, give Bobby some crap, and enjoy our last night here.” He stands from the bed, waiting for John to join him. He follows wordlessly, a hand on Dean’s lower back until they reach the top of the stairs. Dean’s starved for John’s touch, never much a man for hugs as he and Sam grew up, and misses the gentle weight at his back when it’s gone. 

It’s another good dinner. Sam’s forgiven Dean for his earlier outburst, and they spend most of the night telling embarrassing stories about the other and waging a miniature prank war. Bobby and John are drinking, working their way to happy drunk, and Dean’s keeping up with them as best he can while also staying aware enough to joke around with Sammy. It’s warm in Bobby’s house, the closest thing the Winchesters have to a home anymore, and Dean wishes they didn’t have to leave. 

Around midnight, Sam yawns and excuses himself for bed. Dean’s back on the couch with John, not quite ready to turn in. He listens to John and Bobby talk about older times, and gives John a gentle ribbing whenever he can. Without Sam around, it’s easier for Dean to challenge John’s authority for the sake of a laugh, and the alcohol has made John easier going than he might be any other time. 

Every now and then Dean catches Bobby watching him and John, eyes too sharp to be as drunk as he’s otherwise acting, and it makes Dean sober up. He wishes he could just enjoy this time with his father. He doesn’t understand why it’s drawing any attention. 

When Bobby’s ready to turn in, it becomes clear John is a lot drunker than either of them. 

“I got him, Bobby,” says Dean, waving away Bobby’s offer to help cart John up the stairs. “This ain’t my first rodeo.”

“You talking about me?” John slurs. 

“Yes, sir,” says Dean, heaving one of John’s arms over his shoulder. “Let’s go to bed, Dad.”

John stands up, uncertain on his feet, but Dean carries his weight easily enough. Bobby follows them up, ready to catch John if he stumbles, but he leaves Dean to get him into their room on his own. 

“I’ll see you in the morning, boys,” he says, something coloring his tone. 

Dean nods, too tired to worry much about it. “Goodnight, Bobby.”

Once in the room, Dean gets John over to the bed and plops him down. He figures he may as well get ready to sleep before he starts wrestling John out of his clothes. He takes off his tee shirt and his sweats, pulls off his socks, too, and then crawls onto the bed. 

“Dad, you want to sleep in your jeans?”

John scoffs. “Fuck no. Help me out, Dean.”

Dean maneuvers himself so he’s kneeling between John’s legs, still on the bed. He has the easiest access to John’s pants here, and he quickly undoes his belt, top button, and zipper. He runs his hands along John’s thighs. 

“Lift your hips, Dad.”

John complies easily. Dean’s done this too many times before when John’s come home drunk to think much about it. With John’s hips raised, Dean quickly tugs down his jeans, accidentally pulling the boxer-briefs with them. John’s cock pops out of his underwear, soft and pink.

“Oops,” Dean mumbles, which makes John laugh. 

“I’m too drunk to get hard, don’t worry.”

“Ha ha, I wasn’t,” replies Dean, swatting John’s now-exposed thigh, and separating John’s pants from his boxer-briefs. Then he pulls them back up, towards John’s crotch. He stares for a moment at John’s dick, thinking about how John had done this for Dean just that afternoon. He doesn’t understand this intimacy, but the fact that it’s shared makes him happy. 

“Dean?” John questions, hips thrusting up to remind Dean of his job, dick shifting with the motion. 

“Yeah,” Dean says with a nod. He takes John’s cock in his hand and carefully tucks it inside his underwear, hiding his father’s penis under the black cotton fabric. Then he fondles it lightly, an echo of what John had done for him earlier. 

“You’re so good to me, Dean,” says John while Dean moves on to his boot laces and tugs off his shoes so he can finish getting off the jeans. “I love you so much.”

Dean feels his chest tighten. John only says those words when he’s drunk, and it gives Dean a thrill every time. 

“I love you, too,” he tells John back. 

From there it’s a simple matter of getting the jeans off John’s ankles, and removing his socks. John manages to take his own shirt off, and then they’re both ready to sleep. Dean reaches back down into his bag, and pulls out his water bottle and some Ibuprofen. 

“Dad,” he says, nudging John. “Before you go to sleep.” He hands over the water bottle and pill bottle. John sits part way up to gulp down half the bottle and three pills. He lays back down on his side, and Dean hears him quickly drift to sleep. 

Dean, tipsy as he still is, has a harder time of it. He has too much on his mind, and while he’s glad the day ended on a positive note, it doesn’t exactly eclipse his struggles from before dinner. He thinks about John snoring away next to him, and feels a love in his heart he doesn’t know how to name. He thinks he shouldn’t have to give it any name at all; it’s just love. But while he knows it’s easy in the dark to feel what he feels for John Winchester, in the light of the morning things may look completely different. 

It’s with these heavy thoughts that Dean falls into a fitful sleep, only to be woken an hour later when the yelling starts. 

He’s out of bed like a shot, John following sleepily behind, because that shouting is _Sam_. Dean doesn’t bother with a shirt, he just tears out of the room and down the hall, running into Sam’s room without a second thought. John is right behind him, and moments after Bobby is in the room, too. 

Dean is the only one who sits on Sam’s bed, shaking him awake. “Sam!” he says. “ _Sam!_ ”

Sam comes awake quickly, still shouting and eyes wild. “ _Dean?_ ” he says, collapsing against Dean’s chest. 

“Sammy, you’re okay. It was just another dream.” He rocks Sam against him, his brother, his child, and squeezes his eyes shut against the tears he feels from the adrenaline.

Eventually John joins them on the bed. “You okay, Sammy?” he asks Sam softly. 

“Yeah,” says Sam, pulling away from Dean. “I don’t know what that was.”

“Stress, probably,” Bobby offers. He’s holding back, letting John and Dean check in with Sam first. “You got a lot going on, kid.”

Sam nods, though he doesn’t seem wholly convinced. Then his gaze seems to snag on what John and Dean are wearing. Or rather, what they’re _not_. 

“Dean?” he questions, raising a hand to Dean’s chest. 

Dean catches it before it can make contact. He looks back at John, who takes the silent cue to leave the room before anyone can say anything else. 

“Go back to sleep, Sammy,” he says. “You’re fine.”

“Is that how _you’re_ sleeping?” he asks, voice angry. Sam’s so quick to anger, it’s no wonder he and John can’t find anything else to do but argue. 

“I got hot, that’s all. Sam, don’t worry about it.” He stands before Sam can reply. “Goodnight.”

As he walks past Bobby, the older man catches his arm. “Dean,” he warns. “You have to talk to me.”

“I’m fucking fine, Bobby,” he hisses, yanking his arm away. “Goodnight.”

Back in the room he’s sharing with John, Dean closes the door and leans against it, lingering. 

“Come to bed, Dean,” says John. 

“In a minute,” Dean replies. 

He just wants to catch his breath. He wishes they could leave right now. He doesn’t think Bobby would call the police or social services--he can’t really believe that’s where his mind is at all--but nothing feels certain anymore. A week ago, Dean had a normal life, or as close to one as someone like him’s allowed to have, and now he feels it’s slipping out of his fingers, and he doesn’t know what he can hold on to.

But John is in the bed, and he said he loves Dean, and the only constant Dean’s ever had has been his father. So he steps away from the door and slinks over to the bed, slipping under the covers without a single word. He wants to touch John, or for John to touch him, just to hold him because he’s cold, and he’s frightened. But John stays on his back with his arms at his sides and his eyes wide open, and he doesn’t look at Dean at all. 

In the same instant he realizes he’s about to cry, Dean also realizes he won’t be able to stop it. 

“Bobby thinks we’re--” he says before they start coming. 

“I don’t give a fuck what Bobby thinks,” John snaps. Then he turns over on his side with his back to Dean, leaving him to wipe the tears away without an audience. 


	4. Chapter 4

In the morning, things are cold and unfriendly. John wakes up early, around 5:00 a.m., and shakes Dean awake with him. 

“Pack up your things and Sam’s things. Get dressed. Get your brother.”

“Yeah, Dad,” Dean says, wiping sleep from his eyes. This is John before a job, all business and no time to waste. A familiar John that Dean knows exactly how to handle. 

He dresses quickly, packing up whatever’s left with a swift efficiency earned from years of having to move fast. He anticipates John’s needs as best he can, and then goes off to wake Sam. Sam, still irritated with Dean from the night before, shrugs off Dean’s hands and climbs out of bed. 

“We’ll meet you downstairs,” Dean tells him, trying not to take Sam’s anger personally. He knows Sam’s mad _at him_ , but also that this is a lot more about John, and Sam being an angry teen and tired to boot. None of them are going to be at their best this morning. 

He waits for Sam downstairs. John’s already in the car; he didn’t even bother to say goodbye to Bobby, but Dean can’t leave Sioux Falls on those terms. He turns to Bobby, and wills him to understand. 

“He’s not hurting me,” he says. “He’s not even touching me. It isn’t whatever you think.” 

Bobby gives him a look that says, _Yeah, right._ Dean thinks about the way just yesterday both he and John found excuses to touch each other’s dicks and knows Bobby is right to be worried. 

So Dean tries again. “And even it was like that, which it _isn’t_ , I promise you on my fucking life, on Mary Winchester’s fucking _grave_ : he’s not touching a hair on Sam’s head. And so, if you want to toss me out with the trash, good riddance to John and good riddance to me, which I _get_ Bobby, I’m the worst kind of waste of time, please don’t do that to Sam because you think he’s weak like me. Please don’t.”

The look on Bobby’s face is unreadable. Dean doesn’t know if he’s about to be banned from the only place that’s ever felt like home, or if there’s something worse coming his way. But then he sees the redness at Bobby’s eyes. 

“Boy,” Bobby says, voice low. “I am never giving up on you. You say Sam is safe, I believe you. But it’s _you_ I’m fucking worried about Dean.” He steps towards Dean. “You are part of my life, kid, like it or not. Family don’t end in blood. So, if and when you need my help, you have to know I’m ready to give it.”

Dean feels the same anguish from the night before come to the surface. Bobby can see the tears he’s fighting back, surely, and he pulls Dean in for the tightest hug Dean’s ever had. It knocks the wind out of him, and he does his best to give as good as he gets. They only part when they hear Sam clomping down the stairs. 

“Don’t forget what I said,” Bobby tells him, and Dean nods.

He turns to Sam. “You ready, Sammy?”

“Don’t call me that.”

Right. This should be a fun ride back. 

  
  
  


Maybe it’s out of guilt for their less-than-successful visit to Bobby, but John makes the choice to keep Sam at the school he likes so much. When they roll back into down, John finds them a motel closer to the high school, and at the news Sam gets to stay, even he struggles with maintaining a bad attitude towards their father. By Tuesday morning, when Dean’s dropping Sam off for school, all seems mostly forgiven. 

“I’ll be back at 3:00 p.m.,” Dean tells him.

Sam gives him a salute, “Bye, jerk.”

Dean grins. “Later, bitch.”

He’s still in a good mood when he gets back to the motel. John hasn’t found them a new hunt yet, so they get yet another day off from the job. He finds John on the bed, flipping through a few newspapers while the TV plays some morning show. Dean doesn’t think much about it when he joins John on the bed and picks up a paper.

They silently peruse the local news, but nothing’s jumping out. When John finds the comics he hands them wordlessly to Dean, who brightens at the small pleasure. It’s only after Dean finishes that he speaks what’s on his mind.

“You made Sam really happy coming back here.” He says it softly, putting a hand on John’s knee so he’ll look at him. He wants John to know how meaningful that choice was. 

John clears his throat. “I’m not a monster. Sam needed something to look forward to.”

Dean frowns. “No one said you were a monster.” He shifts, aware of their proximity and irritated at his awareness. “If this is about Bobby--”

“It’s not,” John says shortly. He doesn’t sound angry, just clear. 

“Okay,” Dean says. “Well, I just wanted you to know. You should have seen him this morning. You did a good thing.”

John smiles. “I don’t always fuck everything up.”

“Dad,” Dean says, exasperated. 

“So he’s not giving you shit anymore?”

Dean repositions himself so he’s flush against the headboard, shoulder to shoulder with John. The bed creaks suggestively “Not this morning, at least.”

“You let him get away with too much attitude.”

Dean shrugs. “He doesn’t mean anything by it. He’s young.”

John gives him a funny look. “You’re young too, you know.” 

Dean swallows. “Well, yeah. But I’m his big brother. I raised him up with you. I guess it makes me feel older than I am.”

The funny look on John’s face turns into something markedly sadder. “I turned you into this,” he says. 

Dean shakes his head. “Why are you talking like this?”

John’s expression shutters abruptly. “You’re back in Sam’s bed tonight.”

Dean feels a little like he’s been slapped, though he can’t say why. “Okay,” he says. 

He feels like he should move to that bed in the moment, too. Like John doesn’t like that he’s this close. Dean thinks maybe all the weirdness the last few days, all the tension. Maybe it’s just been _him_. Maybe John’s been putting up with Dean’s strange fixations because he was more concerned with Sam and how Dean almost hurt him. Maybe Dean’s misunderstood everything. 

He gets off John’s bed and sits back on Sam’s, shame heating him through like it did that night at Bobby’s after he’d come home from the bar. 

Dean tries to distract himself with household tasks. If they’re staying here for the last few months of Sam’s school year, they don’t need to live out of their go bags. Dean grabs his bag and Sam’s and starts folding clothes to put in the motel-provided drawers, and when he’s done with that he starts on John’s. 

Most of their laundry is clean, having access to Bobby’s washer and dryer, and Dean doesn’t mind putting things away; it's not a job he really enjoys, but the novelty of getting to do it at all keeps him motivated. Once it’s done, he looks around for something else to do, and decides to make a grocery list. He gets down the basics: milk, cereal, frozen dinners. Then he gets John’s input, adding things like nuts, jerky, and beer. 

He makes the trip to the store before he picks up Sam, getting the timing just right so he’s finishing up just before he needs to swing back to campus. Sam’s still in a good mood when Dean gets him, and Dean returns to the motel in a better mood than when he left it. 

The rest of the day passes as usual. John and Sam don’t talk too much, Dean gives Sam shit until every speck of homework is done, and then John goes out to pick up dinner. He comes back with tacos, Dean’s favorite, and Dean wonders if he’s trying to make up for the coldness from earlier. 

At lights out, there’s tension. Sam watches Dean like a hawk, waiting to see what he does, and his relief is palpable when Dean walks over to his bed and tells Sam to shove over. Dean gets in the bed after him and feels self-conscious. John offers them both a goodnight, and then turns the lights out, but still Dean feels more aware of himself than he should. He allows himself to stretch out a bit on the bed--Sam may be tall as a beanstalk, but he’s skinny as shit--and tells himself this is better. He still doesn’t keep his gun under the pillow. 

The night goes fine. Dean wakes up the next morning, a few moments after John but well before Sam, and he knows his nights in John’s bed are over. 

He tries not to feel any particular way about it. Things are exactly as they should be, or at least, exactly how they were before Dean pulled a gun on his brother. 

So life goes on as it always does. That is, until Dean learns Sam’s nightmares aren’t exactly over, after all. They’re infrequent, but still there are nights when Sam fights off invisible enemies in his sleep, and though it pains Dean, he learns its best not to wake Sam up if he can help it.

“If you wake me up,” Sam confesses, “it’s like I can’t stop thinking about them the rest of night. I spend the whole time seeing you dead. Even Dad dead. I remember how I felt _in_ the dream, and I can’t shake it. If you let me sleep, they usually end, and then my brain moves on to something else. It’s just easier.”

So a new routine starts. Dean starts the night with Sam, but if the nightmares take over, with the hitting and kicking, Dean moves over to John’s bed. 

It’s one of those nights, Sam’s overly-long limbs landing on Dean as he works through the horror in his head, and while Dean wants to help he knows he has to just get up and leave Sam to push through them alone. He moves to John’s bed, where the man is sprawled, and wakes him gently. 

“I need room, Dad,” he whispers, and John groggily groans and moves. 

Since their weekend in Sioux Falls John’s been a little kinder to Dean, in some ways at least, and kinder to Sam too. They’re not berated so thoroughly for small mistakes. Sam gets more permission to spend time with friends. John even takes them to the movies once or twice. But in other ways he’s been even more of a hardass, at least where Dean is concerned. He doesn’t touch Dean at all. No hugs, no hands on Dean’s shoulder. And the loss of these more casual touches hurts Dean more than anything else. Dean isn’t even able to help if John comes home drunk. He undresses himself now, and if he can’t manage that then he sleeps in his jeans and shoes. 

It’s driving Dean crazy. 

He lays in John’s bed and watches Sammy fight against the demons in his head, and just wants someone to touch him. But he’s been too afraid to go out and get laid, too afraid to tempt John into an angry outburst again if he comes home smelling like sex. It’s not really the kind of touch he wants anyway. He really just wants to be held. 

He misses being able to touch John, too. The kind touches, the comfortable ones. Sam’s got all of John’s issues, so he doesn’t like when Dean hugs him either, and now that every time Dean extends a friendly hand to John, John steps back like he’s been burned, Dean is left bereft. No one wants to fucking touch him, and he’s starting to feel some kind of cursed. 

He figures it’s the desperation that does it. That causes Dean to turn to John in the dark, sleeping on his back and snoring lightly. Sam is asleep, thrashing slightly in his bed, and John has gone right back out after Dean’s interruption. And Dean thinks maybe if he’s slow and soft enough, he can touch the other man without waking him up. He knows the risk if John catches him. He knows this may earn him his first beating in months. But he’s so hungry for someone else’s skin against his own, that he ignores the possible consequences. 

His hand is careful, so careful, as Dean extends it towards his father under the covers. He wants to try and slip his fingers under John’s shirt so his hand can rest against his belly, feel the rise and fall of it as inhales and exhales. He almost manages it, too. He gets the tips of his fingers just below John’s belly button before the older man grumbles and shifts. Dean freezes, watching in terror as John’s eyes open and slide over to him. 

“Dean,” he says, voice low. 

“I’m sorry,” Dean whispers, horrified of waking Sam up like _this_. “I just wanted to touch you.”

He waits for John to grab his wrist and fling him away, and John meets the expectation half-way. But instead of shoving Dean further towards the end of the bed, he draws him closer. He slides Dean’s hand further up his shirt so it’s resting on his chest, and extends his arm for Dean’s head. And this is how Dean falls asleep, in John’s arms, his own arm half-way up John’s shirt.

He wakes a couple hours later, still before dawn, in an even more intimate position. He’s got a leg thrown over one of John’s, his hips pressing an erection against John’s upper thigh. He doesn’t know if John is awake or asleep, but Dean is feeling just loose and reckless enough after a night of being held by his father to take advantage of the closeness he’s been craving. It’s been so long since he’s felt someone else like this. He squeezes John a little tighter, let’s his hips grind a little more firmly, and inhales the scent of the man next to him.

 _It isn’t wrong_ , he tells himself. He’s a man, and men have needs, and this is just his body reacting to being so close to another person. John is so warm and solid beside him, his body so masculine and big next to Dean’s--just his type on those few occasions he’s let himself find a no-name man in a bar to fuck him. He thinks of his father at Bobby’s, cock exposed in the bed they shared. Hips rising, smiling at Dean as he fondled John’s dick, and telling Dean he’s so good to him. John hadn’t meant anything by it then, and Dean doesn’t mean anything by it now. It just feels _good_. And he _likes_ that they can make each other feel good. Why does this have to be _bad_? Why is it wrong to want to make each other feel good?

He’s thrusting a little more purposefully now, drunk on the way John’s chest hair feels underneath Dean's fingers. He doesn’t feel in danger of coming, it’s just nice to be intimate with someone else. 

“Dean,” whispers John, causing Dean to freeze. 

“Fuck, I’m sorry,” Dean says back. “I’m so sorry, I know this isn’t—” 

“Dean,” says John again. He runs a hand down Dean’s back, causing Dean to freeze once more. “It happens to all of us. It’s still early. Go take care of that, and then come back to bed.”

Dean nods. He’ll take the out. He extricates himself from John, glancing over at Sam as he walks around the bed to the bathroom. Sam’s snoring, blissfully unaware. The clock reads 3:00 a.m., and Dean knows they all still have a few hours yet to rest. 

He doesn’t turn the light on in the bathroom as he positions himself in front of the toilet. He’s reminded of the first time John instructed him to jack off while they were at Bobby’s. How John dressed him and touched him. Of how John’s hand felt on his dick as he put it in Dean’s boxers, how it felt when he squeezed Dean through his sweats. The skim of his hand down Dean’s ass. How it felt when Dean palmed John’s own cock through his underwear. His father joking about how it wouldn’t get hard. Fuck, Dean wants to see his father hard.

Together, the mess of fantasy and memory is enough to pull Dean over the edge into orgasm. 

When he comes back out of the bathroom, John is still awake, waiting for him. He pulls Dean back towards him, positioning them similarly. Dean thrives on the contact, feeling more than content with the way he has permission to lay himself out so close to his father. 

“Feel better?” asks John.

“Yes,” Dean answers, truthfully.

“Then go back to sleep.”

Dean closes his eyes. He worries briefly at what Sam would think if he saw them like this. Sam is almost eighteen, he knows more than most eighteen year olds ever learn in their lifetimes. He thinks of Sam as a kid, his baby brother, sometimes just his _baby_. But if Sam saw him wrapped in John’s arms, he knows he’d lose him forever. Still, it’s not enough to make Dean pull away--he has so few pleasures in life to give one of them up so easily--but in the end it doesn’t matter.

He loses Sam anyway without him finding out what Dean’s getting up to with John at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you're still with me, it's basically all pwp from here on out.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im really tired of sitting on this scene, so im double posting. to my handful of subscribers, I hope it lives up to any hopes you may have had. 
> 
> im finishing up the last chapter and a half. hopefully I can have this done by the weekend.

They miss Sam’s graduation when a hunt goes wrong and keeps them back an extra day. But Sam isn’t mad about it. In fact, he’s extra nice to Dean and respectful to John. This should have been the first sign, but Dean just feels so good about everyone getting along, he doesn’t think to question why it’s happening. John doesn't question it either, at least not with Sam or Dean. If he has any suspicions, he keeps them to himself. 

The three of them pass the summer as they always do. John moves them to a new place now that the school year is over, and they head out to California for work. John and Sam still bump heads sometimes, but it’s nothing too bad, and Dean and Sam spend more time together watching bad T.V., reading comic books out loud to each other, helping out with odd jobs in whatever town they’re in to earn some extra money. That is, until August rolls around. 

The night Sam leaves for Stanford is the second-worst night of Dean’s life after losing Mary. Dean feels completely powerless. He watches Sam and John go back and forth, screaming at each other in their latest motel until management shows up and threatens to kick them all out. John looks ready to beat Sam, hands in fists, which is when Dean can’t stop himself from intervening, second nature. 

“Dad, Dad!” he says, jumping between his father and his brother. “Daddy, please.”

The desperation catches John’s attention. “He’s trying to leave us, Dean,” John says, and Dean can see with perfect clarity the way his heart is breaking. It’s Mary all over again.

Dean looks back at Sam and knows he doesn’t see it. He only sees a John that wants to control him, and Dean can’t even fault Sam for that. John’s never made an effort to see things how Sam does. He’s never made an attempt to work things out.

And now here they all are. 

He knows in his gut this was always bound to happen, and he can see in hindsight how they ended up where they are. Sam’s unsteady truce with John. Sam giving Dean his favorite thing--time together. Sam convenient finding the hunt in California--isn’t Stanford only a two hours drive away from where they’re working this job? Sam has been planning this for weeks--no, months. Sam was always going to leave.

Dean shuts his eyes against the grief. Then he looks again at John. 

“Then let him,” he tells John. He looks back at Sam, but he can’t think of anything to say.

Sam hoists his bag over his shoulder. He looks at his older brother. “Goodbye, Dean.”

And then he’s gone.

Lying in the dark in John’s bed hours later, too stricken to lie on Sam’s, Dean feels numb. Sam is gone, and John won’t speak, and all Dean wants is to scream and cry and be held. He wants John, but he’s terrified to ask for him. 

So he’s shocked when John asks for him, instead. 

“Dean,” he hears his father say. 

“Yeah?”

A beat. 

“I need you.”

He turns to face John then, and they move towards each other in tandem. John pulls Dean so he’s half on top of him, and Dean nuzzles into his chest without realizing how they’re legs are twining. 

“Fuck,” says John, and Dean can tell he’s crying. 

“Daddy,” he says, brought back into his childhood, suffering yet another loss. 

John kisses the crown of his head, and when Dean looks up at him, John drops a kiss on his cheeks instead, then his nose, and finally— _f_ _inally!_ —his lips. 

There’s no great pause when it happens. The world doesn’t end. Dean leans into his father as their mouths touch and finds it is the easiest thing in the world to do. He moans against John, relieved at how simple this is. They’re sad and lonely and grieving, and they love each other. Why shouldn’t they comfort each other however they please? 

Suddenly John shifts. Dean worries he’s going to stop this, that he’ll tell Dean that he’s sick for going along with it at all. But John only puts Dean on his back so he can better position himself between Dean’s legs. He looks down at Dean, eyes red-rimmed. 

“You know I love you,” he says. “And I’m never going to leave you." 

Dean nods, bringing his hands to John’s sides. 

“Tell me you’re never going to leave me,” John orders. 

Dean’s eyes close, savoring the need coming off his father. He looks at him again. “I’m never going to leave you,” he whispers, then he wraps his arms around John’s neck to pull him back down for another kiss. “I’m always going to want you,” he whispers against John’s skin. 

That rips a sound out of John that Dean’s never heard before. Like a wounded animal. It makes John pull suddenly back from Dean, off the bed altogether. Dean doesn’t understand at first; he thought John would like that. But then he realizes John is off the bed so he can take his underwear off more easily. He crawls back on the mattress so that he can take off Dean’s too. Then he settles back between Dean’s legs. Dean looks down at their cocks, glistening and swollen, and moans. 

The sound spurs his father into action. John crowds over Dean, leaning down for a kiss, pushing his tongue into Dean’s mouth, and Dean is opening up for him wider and wider. John’s body bears down on his own, forcing Dean to spread his legs further apart as his mouth is so taken by John’s. He can feel John’s cock at his hips, hard and heavy and leaking all over the both of them. Dean’s own cock is just the same, and every now and then they both make contact, causing Dean to gasp into John’s mouth. 

“Oh, _god_ ,” John says after the third time their heads brush together. 

They’re not kissing anymore, so much as they’re grinding, John rutting against Dean and Dean rutting against John. Dean isn’t totally sure what’s happening. He knows objectively what they’re doing, but he doesn’t know if they’re crossing into uncharted territory or settling into something that’s always been there between them. Dean thinks of every time he’s seen John’s cock after a hunt or before a shower. About every time he’s heard John touch himself. The times he’s put himself on display for his father without thinking twice about it. He wonders if this is always what they were building to. 

_You’re like his wife_ Sam said, and _fuck,_ he’d had no idea. 

“John,” says Dean, trying the name out on his tongue. That’s what a wife would call him. “God, _John_.”

“Fuck,” John says above him. His hips stutter. “Say it again.” 

“John,” Dean repeats, clutching at John while his hips hump against his father’s leg. 

John orgasms with a strangled grunt, all over Dean’s stomach. “Dean,” he says over and over while he unloads. “Baby.” 

Dean is still hard, but he thinks that’s okay, because John came, and John needed him. So he isn’t disappointed when John heaves off of Dean, lying beside him instead. 

“Baby,” John whispers again against the shell of Dean’s ear. His hand trails through the cum on Dean’s stomach. “You haven’t come for me yet.”

 _Oh_ , Dean thinks. He wasn’t expecting that.

“T-touch me,” he stutters out, so close to finishing. 

John nods. His hand covers Dean’s cock, slick with John’s own cum, and then begins to stroke. 

“Is that good?” he whispers against Dean’s ear. 

“Yes, John,” Dean answers, breathless. “I’m almost—”

And then he is. Thick white ropes erupt from Dean’s dick and right into John’s hand.

“So good, Dean,” John says as he pumps Dean through it. 

The silence after Dean’s orgasm is deafening. Dean is terrified of what John’s going to say. 

So he’s shocked when the first words out of John’s mouth are, “Let’s get cleaned up.”

Dean, nervous about what’s next, doesn’t need to be told twice. 

In silence, John goes to the bathroom, wets a washcloth, and then returns to the bed. In silence, he wipes at his cock, then wipes at Deans. In silence, he cleans away their intermingled seed painting Dean’s stomach and thighs. It’s so tender, Dean could cry. He doesn’t know what to call the feeling overwhelming him. It makes him want to curl up beside John, _inside_ John, and never come out. 

When he’s finished, John tosses the washcloth aside and sets them back up under the covers. He spoons Dean in the dark, no hesitation, and Dean doesn’t know what to think. 

“It’s been a bad day,” John mumbles against the nape of Dean’s neck. “Let’s save the rest for the morning.”

Dean murmurs his agreement and settles back against John. They’ll sort this out when they wake up. 

  
  
  


In the morning, Dean doesn’t wake to an empty bed like he expected. John is still beside him, an arm thrown carelessly over Dean’s waist, and his swollen dick pressing into Dean’s thigh. Dean’s own cock starts to fill at the sensation of John’s arousal. 

John, ever the light sleeper, seems to sense that Dean’s awake. Dean waits for him to pull away when he realizes their position, but the moment never happens. Instead, as full consciousness comes to John Winchester, so does his interest in touching Dean. 

“Morning,” John says to Dean, his hips thrusting lazily. Dean thinks about how often they parallel each other.

“Good morning,” Dean says back. “I’m glad you’re still here.”

John groans at that. “I told you I wouldn’t leave you.”

“I know,” says Dean. He turns to face John, though it makes him nervous. Then he leans in to kiss his lips gently. 

John let’s him, and Dean breathes a little easier. 

“I just wasn’t sure how we’d feel in the morning,” Dean says between kisses. 

“I know,” John agrees, and this is the softest Dean thinks he’s ever seen him. “But it’s morning, and I just,” he inhales deeply. “I just want to feel you. It’s driving me fucking crazy.” Then John all but yanks Dean towards him, shoving his nose against Dean’s neck. 

They’re still grief-crazed, Dean thinks. That’s what’s driving this desire to be so close, to forgo convention and appropriateness and _touch_. 

“You feel good,” Dean tells him, rolling his hips.

“Call me ‘John’ again,” he says against Dean’s skin.

“So good, John,” says Dean. 

He feels like his father’s wife at this moment. Like his partner. Like Dean’s sole purpose is making John feel good and safe and loved, and that John is going to give that back to Dean, too. He feels he’s in some kind of strange feedback loop with John, where what they’re giving and receiving is something more than paternal or filial. He’s John’s equal in this experience, they’re both so vulnerable and exposed within it. Dean doesn’t know a better word to encompass what he is to John as he kisses him and gropes at him, besides his _wife_. 

“Baby,” John says and he moves on top of Dean. 

Dean thinks John likes this position, and Dean knows he certainly does. The weight of John’s hips pressing him into the mattress, his chest holding Dean in place. He likes wrapping his legs around John’s thighs and his arms around John’s neck, and how they’re able to rock seamlessly together. 

“I like it when you call me that,” Dean whispers against John’s lips. Then, feeling bold: “Will you call me that when you fuck me?” He’d be a little more embarrassed about blatantly asking his father to fuck him if that wasn’t so clearly what John was playing at with his dick thrusting so firmly against Dean’s ass.

“Jesus, Dean,” John chokes out. 

But something is unleashed inside him. It’s been months, _years_ , of working up to this very moment with John, and Dean feels like a trapped feral animal finally breaking from its chains. No more pretending this isn’t what they both wanted, strutting around each other naked, undressing each other in bed, _god_ , they’ve been so obvious and stupid. 

“You know that’s what I do, don’t you, John?” he says against the skin at John’s throat. “When I go to bars? Sometimes I find some wet cunt to fuck but sometimes,”--his fingers rake down John’s back--“sometimes I find some man to fuck me instead. Some man with hands like yours and arms like yours and a cock like yours. And I let him take me in a bathroom stall, or behind the building, or in their car.”

John groans between them, hips stuttering. He’s close, and so is Dean. Dean is good at sex; it’s one of his only talents. And he thinks he knows what will send John over.

“And I would think about getting fucked in your car,” he says, voice wrecked with want. “I want you to fuck me in your car, John. I want you to come inside me while I ride you, want you to fill me up, _fuck_ , John!”

And then they’re both coming against one another, hot and thick. John kisses Dean through it, riding the waves of their arousal together. Dean is almost crying, the release feels so good. So earned. 

“You’ve got a mouth on you, boy,” John says as he rolls off of Dean. “What the fuck was that?”

Dean blushes. He sits up and looks down at John. “Was it okay?” 

He worries suddenly he’s fucked it all up again. He’s been too desperate, too dirty. He remembers John being disgusted at his unclean body back in Sioux Falls, and wonders if he’s just disgusted at his unclean mind. 

John lifts a hand and caresses Dean's stomach, deftly avoiding the cum splattered there. “Dean,” he says, still a little breathless. “Yes. Yes, it was okay.”

Now that the heat of the moment is gone, Dean isn’t sure how to act. If he were with someone he’d just picked up, he might kiss them in the afterglow before zipping his pants back up and walking away. But he doesn’t know if kissing is the right move after coming all over your father, and he certainly can’t walk away. 

“I can hear you thinking from here,” says John. 

“I’m just trying to figure out where we go from here,” says Dean. “Wondering what we are now?” Dean can’t stop himself from asking, though he knows he’s killing whatever of the mood was left. 

John’s groan reverberates through Dean’s pulse points like an electric current, his hand dances around towards Dean’s groin. 

“And what do you think we are, Dean?”

“I don’t know,” he says, gasping as John fondles his spent cock. “Sam called me your wife once. And after all...this? I know I’m not Mary, but--”

“ _Shut up_ ,” snaps John, hand jerking away. “Don’t say their names.”

Dean swallows. 

“What we did last night?” John continues. “What we did this morning? It’s just you and me now, Dean.”

And there’s the shame, Dean understands. John’s shame is all wrapped up in his feelings for Dean--it’s partly Dean’s fault, after all--but he’s not going to let his shame get to his memories of Mary. His love for Sam. 

“Okay,” Dean agrees. “Just you and me.”

John sits up with another groan. “I’m going to get cleaned up and then get us some breakfast. Then we’re hitting the road. I don’t want to be here anymore.”

Dean watches him walk to the bathroom. He scratches at the cum drying on his stomach. Of course he can’t tell whose is whose, and that’s when the shame hits him, too. Sam would be so repulsed to know what Dean did for John. Anyone would be. Dean thinks about Bobby, practically begging him to say what’s going on with his father, and Dean suddenly wishes he could take it all back. 

He wishes Sammy was here. It hurts to see the room without Sam or his things in it. Sam’s bed is still unmade from the morning before, and Dean feels a wave of grief hit alongside his tide of shame. He’s still roiling in it when John gets out of the bathroom, steam following behind. He expects John to ignore him and get dressed, like any other morning before they head out of a place. But instead, John kneels in front of him. His eyes are hard and unyielding, but the hands he places on either side of Dean’s face speak to something different.

He leans in to kiss Dean gently on the lips. Dean yields to it, hungry for it. 

John pulls away only a moment later. He looks at Dean, eyes still cold as steel. “Get the fuck over yourself,” he spits at Dean, hands leaving Dean’s face.

Dean blinks, head jerking back in surprise.

“And clean yourself up so we can go.”

“Yes, sir.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I told y'all we were entering the land of plot, what plot?
> 
> some light daddy/praise/bitch kink has entered the chat.

Life goes on. During the day, John and Dean behave as they always did. They hunt, they drive, they listen to old rock music, they eat gas station and diner food, they drink stale coffee. It’s predictable and comfortable, the one part of their life that Sam was only tangentially part of, and so the least obvious about his absence. Dean thinks maybe that’s why John throws them into hunting more aggressively than he ever has before. They barely finish one before John’s searching for a new one, and often they drive through the night from one town to another without a proper rest. 

But at night, they become something else. The moment they check into their motel--when John decides they _need_ a place to stay at all--and throw their bags down on the floor, John pulls Dean into his arms for a kiss, and Dean lets himself be guided to the single bed John’s taken to booking for them. 

The first time after Sam’s gone, the first time they book a room just for the two of them, John fucks Dean’s ass proper. He’s never done it before, and Dean can tell, his blunt fingers pushing too forcefully into Dean’s hole, not nearly lubed enough. It hurts. 

“Dad,” Dean says, voice strained. “Slow down.”

John growls at him, but complies, dragging his fingers out of Dean and leaning back. He has Dean on his stomach for easier access, and Dean turns over gingerly to look at him. He doesn’t want to tell John what to do, he’s not sure John would listen, but Dean’s the only person in the room who's done this before, and he thinks deep down that John wouldn’t want this to be bad. 

“Can I show you?” he asks, looking up at John, hands skimming over John’s back, his ass, his thighs.

“You mean how those other men did it?” John says, anger coloring his tone. “When they fucked you like some whore?”

It’s not anger, Dean realizes. It’s jealousy. He sidles up closer to John, both on their knees on the bed. He kisses John, tongue licking into John’s mouth. Then he bends to kiss and suck down John’s neck, across his chest, taking a nipple between his lips. He can hear his father’s labored breathing above him. He wonders if anyone’s made John feel this good before. If even Mary could make him--

No. He won’t let himself go there. 

He stops his ministrations and looks up at John through his eyelashes. “Is this good, Daddy?”

 _Mmm,_ he’s never called John that before. He watches for the reaction. Wonders if they can get any more fucked up. 

At the word, John’s eyes flutter shut. “It’s good,” he says. “Baby, you’re so good.”

Dean likes that. God, he likes that. He bends down further, laying on his stomach. With John on his knees and Dean on his belly, his cock is at the perfect level for Dean to take into his mouth. 

It’s another first, Dean sucking off John. He worries initially about being out of practice. It’s been almost a year since Dean’s given a man head, but he’s so starved to have John inside him, to feel the velveted weight of his member in Dean’s mouth, he isn’t discouraged for long. He licks his lips in anticipation, and then swallows John whole. 

Like riding a bicycle.

“Fuck, Dean,” murmurs John above him. His hips start thrusting into Dean’s face, coarse pubic hair scratching at his nose with every forward push. And this is what Dean wants: for John to feel good. To feel in control. Fucking lazily into Dean’s mouth, using Dean to feel good, god, he just wants his father to feel good. It’s what drives so much of his behavior, seeing how it pleases John. 

He pulls off a handful of minutes later, however, because he’s not going to risk John coming in his mouth. No, Dean wants that to happen later, when John’s cock is fucking into some other part of Dean. He moves back up to his knees, and watches John’s eyes fixate on his lips. they’re pink and swollen from stretching around John, and Dean knows he looks exactly like the whore John accused him of being. He kisses his previous journey in reverse, starting low with John’s nipple and working his way back up to John’s lips. This time it’s John’s tongue licking into Dean’s mouth, tasting himself there. 

“I’m going to fuck you,” John says to him. 

“Yes, John,” Dean agrees. 

He lays on his back and reaches for the lube on the nightstand. He scoots down closer to John, reaching for John’s side with his free hand. “Watch me,” he tells him, caressing John’s taught muscles in reassurance. 

He prepares himself as quickly as he can, but slowly enough for John to understand what he needs to do in the future. 

“It’s been a long time,” Dean tells him. “Soon I won’t need this much to be ready.”

John doesn’t say anything. He just grabs the lube for himself and slicks up his fingers. Dean takes his out, wiping the excess on the side of the bed. This time when John fingers him open, Dean’s eyes shutter in pleasure and not pain. 

“Is that better?” John asks, uncharacteristically open to feedback. 

“So good,” Dean confirms. “I’m ready for your cock now.”

John doesn’t need to be told twice. He slicks himself up quickly, lining up with Dean’s hole. He stops at the entrance, waiting for Dean to look at him. 

“Tell me you want this.” says John. He seems so uncertain on top of Dean, so small. 

“I want this,” Dean tells him, smiling.

“Tell me you won’t leave me.”

“I won’t leave you.”

“Tell me you love me.”

“I love you.”

He starts to push in. He enters slowly, as if savoring that this is the first time he will ever know Dean this way. Dean is certainly savoring that this is the first time that he will ever know John this way. He will never experience the first perfect drag of his father’s cock easing inside of him again. This is it. 

“Oh, my god,” John chokes out when he’s buried to the hilt.

Dean is too in it to talk. He can’t put into the words the significance of being with John this way. Of being connected like this. Literally having his father inside him, conjoined. He feels high. Drunk. Somehow out of and within his body at the same time.

“ _Daddy_ ,” he whispers, loving his father, loving John. 

And then the fucking starts. John is an animal on top of him. He leans back from Dean, gripping Dean’s thighs in his hands, and drags Dean on and off his cock like a doll. Dean lies there and takes it. He lets himself feel as much of it as he can. He’s never been fucked like this before. He’s never had someone use him with such abandon. John’s assault on his prostate is relentless and debilitating. 

“Dean,” John keeps repeating. “ _Dean_.”

Dean still can’t speak. He just lies on the bed and lets the experience carry him to its conclusion. When John comes inside of him, Dean just closes his eyes and transcends. He only opens them again to look at John when he feels his softened cock start to slip out of the nest it's made of Dean’s hole. 

“John,” he says weakly. But John doesn’t register it. Dean tries to really _look_ at him through the fog of his arousal. John seems transformed. He chest heaves with his breathing, his eyes tearing through his release. 

“You didn’t come,” John says. “Why didn’t you…”

Dean can’t answer him, still without the full faculty of his words. He wants to tell John it’s not his fault. That the experience was more than just sex, that coming would pale in comparison to the closeness he feels with his father in this moment. 

He doesn’t know how to say it, though. John looks down at Dean’s weeping penis and licks at his lips. As such, Dean gets only a moment's notice before John takes him in his mouth. 

It’s enough of a sensory overload to jolt Dean back into physical awareness. Dean’s hands go immediately to John’s hair, gripping him at the roots, soaked with John’s sweat. He bucks into John’s mouth, and tries to warn him before the orgasm hits a moment too soon. 

“Fuck,” he says, his whole body trembling. He’s spilling into John’s mouth, John riding him through it, and he hopes this experience doesn’t scare John away from sucking him off again, because _holy shit_. 

He finally finishes, and John pulls off, his mouth full of Dean’s seed. He waits for John to spit it out, ready to not take it personally. But instead, John leans over him and grabs Dean’s face. He squeezes at Dean’s chin until it clicks. And, fuck, but Dean didn’t see this coming. He shuts his eyes and opens his mouth, and waits for the first trickle of his own cum to hit his tongue. 

There’s a lot of it, and John’s aim isn’t perfect. Dean feels wet strands of his cum mixed with John’s spit trail down the sides of his face and over John’s fingers where they’re still holding him. It’s so filthy he’d get hard again if he hadn’t just had the most intense orgasm of his life. 

When John finishes, he tells Dean to open his eyes. He waits for Dean to comply before ordering, “Swallow it.”

Dean lets it play over his tongue, showing his father the fruits of his labor one last time before swallowing it down as asked. He opens his mouth to show John he’s a good listener, even in bed, especially in bed. John kisses him then, licking into Dean’s mouth, and then outside of it, lapping at the mess he’s made. He finishes by cleaning off his fingers and then rolling off of Dean to lie beside him. 

They sit in a sort of stunned silence. Dean tries to think of how to convey to John what the last hour has meant to him.

“No one’s ever,” he says, voice hoarse despite its lack of use. “I’ve never…”

John responds by pulling Dean into him and kissing the crown of his sweat-slicked head. 

“Dad,” Dean says, retreating into John’s arms. And he feels himself begin to cry, having no other way to release the feelings coursing through every limb of his body. 

“I’m here,” says John, overwrought himself. 

They’re exhausted and filthy and in desperate need of shower, but Dean can’t bring himself to let John go or get out of their soiled bed. John seems similarly affected, as he stays as close to Dean as Dean stays to him until they both fall into a dreamless sleep.

Dean wakes up in the dark of the night, John still wrapped around him from behind. It’s warm outside, but the muggy, stale air conditioning keeps the room cool enough. Dean tries to shift and feels the ache in his ass something fierce. He lets out a long exhale, which wakes John with a grunt. 

“Dean?” he questions. 

“All good,” he answers. 

John nods against Dean’s shoulder, falling back asleep. Dean stares at the place where Sam’s bed would normally be, and he can’t remember the last time they booked a room without him. It hits all over again, that Sam is gone. That John told him not to come back. The grief comes crashing into him, and Dean doesn’t want to think about this anymore.

He turns over so he’s facing John, and sits up. “Dad,” he says. “Wake up.”

John comes back to. “Dean, I thought you were good?”

“I want you to fuck me again.”

John blinks at him. “What time is it?”

Dean doesn’t know, and he doesn’t care. He wants John not to care, too, so without preamble he shoves his hands under the covers and grabs John’s dick roughly. 

“What the hell, Dean,” says John, but he doesn’t pull Dean’s hand away. 

“Please,” Dean begs, feeling John grow in his hand. 

John doesn’t say another word. He reaches for the lube while Dean gets him hard. John tries to sit up, presumably to fall back into the position he and Dean have defaulted to, Dean on his back with John above him. But that’s not what Dean wants right now. 

“No,” he says, free hand pushing back on John’s chest. “Like this.” Then he releases John’s cock and straddles his lap. 

Dean sits back on his heels while John spreads the lube over himself, and then positions himself over John. 

“Are you ready?” John asks, unsure.

“I’m good,” says Dean. He’s still loose from his earlier fucking, plus the lube John just put on his cock. Besides. Dean wants it to burn. He palms at John’s cock himself, so his father lets himself go, moving both hands now to Dean’s waist, and Dean lowers himself slowly onto John.

He has to work more when he’s on top. Gravity pushes Dean ever-downwards, setting himself further on fire as he’s subjected to too much too soon. But it’s hard for John to thrust as aggressively from under his son, giving Dean more opportunity to set the pace and depth. He leans forward with his hands on John’s chest and rolls his hips with a snap that has John swearing. 

“Look at me,” Dean tells him. “Look at what you’re doing to me.”

John’s eyes catch on Dean’s face. 

“You’re so fucking beautiful, Dean,” he says. He lifts a hand to touch his cheek 

Dean nuzzles into it, and when John’s thumb trails over his bottom lip, he knows exactly what to do, and takes it into his mouth. 

“That’s right,” John pants below him. “Should have known a mouth like yours would always need something in it.”

Dean’s eyes close as he sucks the digit. 

“You like having me inside you at both ends?” says John, and Dean nods. “You’re such a fucking whore.”

Dean pulls off John’s thumb. “Only for you.”

John nods. “My little fucking bitch.”

The word rings through Dean’s skull, unlocking yet another door he didn’t know he even had. “Fuck, yes,” he says, his hips stuttering. “I’m your bitch.”

“Say my name, bitch,” says John, realizing what the word does to Dean. 

“John Winchester’s bitch.” He’s going to come soon. He rides John’s cock faster. 

“Daddy’s little bitch,” says his father. “ _Say it._ ”

“I’m Daddy’s little bitch!”

And that does it. Dean’s spilling himself all over John’s stomach. Jesus fucking Christ. 

But John isn’t there yet. This position might work for Dean, but it’s not quite right to finish John off. He pulls himself into a sitting position, making sure to keep his cock tucked into Dean’s ass, and Dean takes the cue to lie down. 

In this position, John can fuck into Dean as hard and as fast as he wants. Dean leaves his body a little while it happens, too overstimulated to focus on what his father is doing. It’s easier to lie back and bask, while John’s sweat drips onto his chest. He doesn’t bring himself back to John’s face until he takes his still-hard dick out of Dean’s hole. 

“Dad,” he questions, confused. 

“Open your mouth,” orders John as he moves to straddle Dean’s chest.

Immediately, Dean does, tongue sticking out in anticipation. He moves his hands to John’s ass, rubbing the flesh there as John jerks himself above his face. 

Above him, John doesn’t stop talking. A litany of curses and affection washes over Dean as he waits, mouth ready. 

“Love you so much,” says John. “My fucking bitch,” says John. “Motherfucker,” says John, to which Dean silently thinks, _Wrong parent._

But still, Dean can see John is struggling to finish. Maybe it’s his age, maybe it’s the position, Dean isn’t sure. But he takes John’s cock in his hand, making John let go, and starts jerking him himself. He holds his fathers dick against his cheek, rubs his face against it. 

“I love you so much,” he tells John. “I’ve wanted this for so long.”

Because he has. He couldn’t name it before now, the heat in his belly every time he saw John naked. But hindsight is 20-20, and he understands it all perfectly looking back. So he tells John everything. 

“Remember when I was sixteen? That werewolf outside Austin? His claws got you right _here_.” He touches the point on John’s groin where there’s still a faint scar. It’d been only a few inches away from John’s dick, deep enough to need stitches, but tucked away where John couldn’t see. 

“I remember,” groans John. 

“I had to sew you up. You had to strip because I couldn’t see clearly with your underwear on, and I was about as close to your cock then as I am now.” He jerks at John slowly, swiping his thumb over his slit. “And I, I touched you, on accident at first, and then on purpose. Trying to pull the skin in place so I could sew you up straight. I kept having to hold your dick out of the way and you--”

“I started to get hard,” finishes John. “You were making me hard.”

At the time, of course, they had both credited John’s overtaxed and overstimulated body for the reaction. To hear John say now it was Dean’s doing makes him close his eyes and sigh.

“And I just kept reaching for you. You felt so god in my hand, and I kept getting distracted.”

“You touched the head once,” his father says. “I never knew if it was on purpose or on accident. I guess now I know.”

“Of course it was on purpose,” confirms Dean. “And then do you remember, after that I left? I left you with Sam and went out?”

John nods. 

“And I found the seediest bar that I could, Dad, and the first man that came up to me, I put my hand on his cock through his pants, and I let him take me out into the alley behind the building, and I let him shove me onto my knees. And he fucked me like that, in the dirt, like a dog, and the whole time I thought of how I was so close I could have put you in my mouth.”

And that does the trick.

“Dean,” John says, and Dean knows to open wide and close his eyes. 

He feels the cum on his cheeks and his eyelashes, landing in his mouth, on his tongue. 

It’s not as dramatic of an orgasm as John’s first one, but Dean still feels the revelatory quality of it. Of knowing and voicing for the first time in his life when this started. He lays in bed, a little stupefied by it all. 

As the very first time, John gets a damp washcloth and reverently cleans Dean up. He wipes delicately at his face, not wanting to be rough around Dean’s eyes and cheeks. Then, when he’s finished, he holds Dean, spooning him again from behind. 

“I knew what you did,” he whispers into Dean’s shoulder. “You came back smelling filthy. You put your clothes in the laundry bag by my bed, and I watched you undress. When you walked into the bathroom and turned on the light, I could see the bite marks.”

Dean listens to John talk, seeing that night in—yet again—a whole new light. 

John continues. “Your clothes reeked like sex. I could smell them from across the room. You had hickeys on your throat. And I just...knew. Something had changed.”

His arm comes to wrap around Dean’s chest, and Dean covers the hand there with his own. 

“You started talking to me while you were naked. I didn’t get it, but it never seemed...I don’t know. I thought it was in my head.”

“I wanted you to look at me,” Dean admits in a small voice. “I didn’t realize that’s what I was doing, I was just doing it.”

“And I started doing it too. Taking longer to undress in front you. Talking to you while I was naked. Until it was just normal.”

“And then you started to touch yourself.” Dean remembers the first time. He’d been nineteen years old, and John had been talking with Dean as they got ready for bed, running through their to-do list for the next day. John’s hand sidling lower over his abdomen, cock still bare from his shower. And then his hand had grasped himself, lazy, almost perfunctory. Dean had been sitting on John’s bed so he could speak more quietly but still have John hear him, and his eyes had been almost level with John’s dick as it had started to harden. 

“Jesus,” mutters John. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“Maybe you wanted me to look at you, too.”

John lets Dean go, rolling over and further away. “Fuck, Dean. What’s wrong with us?”

Dean goes cold. “Are you upset with me?”

“No,” assures John. “But this isn’t right.”

Dean can’t argue with this, so he doesn’t. 

They sit in an uncomfortable silence until John finally says, “I need to sleep. So do you. I’m finding us a job in the morning.”

It’s already morning. The clock on the nightstand tells Dean there’s really not much sleep to be had. But he turns his back to John and once again faces the empty space where a second bed should be. 

He doesn’t sleep at all. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you've commented or subscribed, you've seriously made my day. I know there's a lot of Tumblr discourse around the importance of commenting, but like...seriously...mvps over here telling me you like this fucked up little ditty of a story. thank you <3.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay so this ended up being 8 chapters instead of 9, but it is complete. idk if I'll post 9 today as well, might need to revise a little, but here's 7.

Initially, life post-Sam sees Dean split into two parts. The first is professional hunting Dean. His father’s work partner and right hand man. While on a hunt, John and Dean do what they always do, live how they always live, and they don’t touch each other more than they have to. This part of Dean is efficient, cocky, a little crass. This part of Dean flirts with every available girl, does every single thing John says, and is never, ever caught with his pants down. He works hard, he follows orders, and he gets shit done. 

The second part of Dean, however, is John’s personal bitch. This is who comes out behind locked doors, in the dark of motel rooms, in the early hours of the morning. When Dean is being his father’s bitch, he still listens to everything John says, but he asks for what he needs too. He doesn’t have to keep his hands to himself, and he doesn’t have to be cold and cut off. He can _feel_. He can tell John he loves him, he can ask John to say he loves him back. This part lives for pleasing John Winchester and being pleased in return.

Sometimes Dean spends days at a time as just a hunter. He never asks John for anything, he doesn’t question a single thing his father says. When he’s hunting, Dean doesn’t even think about being John’s bitch, he just thinks about saving people. Hunting things. His family's business. And if John thinks about Dean in any other way beyond this role, he doesn’t let on. 

Instead, John learns to strike a balance, a routine. He’ll have the pair of them hunt for a week, no breaks, sleeping in the Impala, not a single intimate touch between them. Then he’ll find them a motel and keep Dean busy for three days straight, working him in an entirely different way. 

These times in between jobs are like fever dreams. Dean feels his body key up as the days pass, itching for a release. And when John finally says, “Time for a break,” the urge becomes almost unmanageable. He wants to suck John’s cock on the spot, make him pull over and take off Dean’s clothes and have John fuck him on the hood of his car for anyone passing by to see. 

The moment they make it inside the room, John’s on him, mouth hot and wet. That first fuck is alwasy the hardest, alwasy the wildest. Sometimes John can’t make it to the bed, fucking Dean right against the wall. One time, as they’d attempted to kiss and walk at the same time, John had tripped, taking Dean down with him, and they’d ended up fucking right there on the floor, Dean on his hands and knees with John at his back, their clothes still on. 

But Dean’s favorite times are when John’s already a little worn out. When he’s a little lazier about it, a little sweeter. When John just wants to sit back against the headboard with Dean in his lap, rolling his hips forward and back while John jerks him off, kissing and biting into his shoulder. This is when John calls him _baby_ instead of _bitch_ , when John repeats how good Dean is, how pretty. Dean likes it rough, don’t get him wrong. Likes when John leaves marks in his skin and spits, _Daddy’s bitch_ , until Dean can’t think of himself as anything else. But those times when John is softer, gentler. When he nuzzles Dean as he fucks him, twines Dean’s fingers in his own--that’s what Dean likes best.

 _We’re making love_ , he thinks about those moments, and then stops himself. Now he really sounds like a wife. He looks at John and tries to imagine saying it out loud to him-- _make love to me, John_ \--and just can’t. John would smack him on the spot, he’s sure. So Dean doesn’t say anything, and the pattern holds. Hunt. Fuck. Hunt. Fuck. And it works. 

Mostly.

There are times, though, when Dean thinks they’re making this harder on themselves than they have to. Because, while he likes the feverish pace of the between-hunt fucks, sometimes he’d like a little more breathing room. Adrenaline is high when they hunt and high when they fuck, without a lot of time to come down in between, and Dean wonders if there’s a better way to do it. 

He’d also like to think of himself as something more than just a hunter or a bitch. Without Sam as a shared responsibility, Dean’s starting to feel like his only purpose is to do what John says, and while that often brings him a kind of pleasure, he’d prefer it not be his _only_ defining factor. He misses feeling like a partner in something with John, like they’re helping grow something together, instead of just sharing in the responsibility of killing.

He doesn’t say anything to John, though. He can’t question him on a hunt--that’d be against the rules--and John doesn’t like to talk about hunting when they’re fucking, either. So Dean keeps his mouth shut. 

It’s not until they’re stuck in a bar in some no-name town, waiting to see if any vampires show up, that Dean finally gets the courage to say something, and only then because John’s mood is so terrifically terrible, he can’t imagine there’s much else to lose. 

“Do you want a drink? I want a drink,” he says, standing from the table. 

“Sit down, we’re on a job,” John snaps. 

Dean closes his eyes against the frustration. “It’s 1:00 a.m., and no one has showed. Maybe we have shitty intel, maybe tonight just isn’t the night, but we have to call it at some point.”

“The fuck we do. We call it when it’s finished.”

Dean sits back into the booth with a sigh, but this time, he sits on John’s side. 

“It happens, and you know it. We need a break.” He carefully avoids making it sound like this is about John. “Let’s drink a little, get some shut eye, and then get back to it in the morning.”

He can tell John doesn’t want to do it. He doesn’t want to give in, take the advice. He risks a hand on his father’s thigh, but not as an advance. Just as a gentle touch. The kind of gentle touches they used to share all the time before. Before. 

“Fine,” says John. “Make it a pitcher and two shots.”

Dean lifts his hand from John’s thigh to his stomach. “You got it.”

The alcohol unwinds them both further. The tension starts to unetch itself from John’s face. Dean still sits beside him in the booth, tucked in a corner out of everyone’s line of sight. At first, Dean had kept a small space between them, not so forward as before, but after a shot and a pint, he’s feeling looser. So is John. In fact, it’s John who throws an arm over Dean’s shoulder and pulls him in. 

_I like this_. Dean wants to say. _I like when you just hold me close_. He feels more like a partner this way. John isn’t telling him what to do, he isn’t feeling Dean up. They’re just close. Like how they were before the fucking really started, when it was enough just to touch each other’s neck, shoulders, back. And Dean realizes how much he’s been craving this. How starved he’s been for this less intensive intimacy. 

John seems to like it too. He laughs a little at the shit Dean says, letting Dean distract him, relax him. He keeps his arm around Dean’s shoulders, while Dean keeps a hand on John’s thigh, until the pitcher is empty. They’ve been cuddled together for an hour. 

“Fuck,” mutters John. “Let’s go.”

They stop in the bathroom for a last minute piss and to rinse their mouths out before settling into the Impala for a few hours of shut-eye. Walking over to the car, Dean feels good. He’s got a warmth in his belly that makes him want to smile, to touch, and he thinks John might feel the same. At the car, Dean stops before getting in, and pulls John towards him by his beat-up leather jacket. 

“You’re pushing it,” John warns, but it's undercut by his hands sliding into Dean’s jacket to grab onto his waist. By the way he leans in to kiss Dean. By the way his hands rove lower to clutch at Dean’s ass. 

“I’m trying,” says Dean, excited at the prospect of talking back while technically still on a job. “I’m trying to make you touch me.”

“Is that all you want?” says John, squeezing Dean. 

The idea hits Dean suddenly, obviously. “No,” he says breathless. He thinks back to confessing this fantasy to John the first time they’d _really_ touched each other. “I want you to fuck me in this car.”

John’s eyes shut at the words; he shifts further against Dean. “Get in,” he growls. 

He drives them to the spot he’d cased out earlier. Shrouded by shrubs, far from any people or light source besides the moon and the stars. The whole way there, Dean can’t keep his hands to himself. He’s shocked John let’s him be so handsy. He palms at himself and at John, even unzips John’s pants so he can work his dick out as he drives. He jerks at his father, then pulls his own cock out so he can work himself too. And John just sits back and lets him. 

They’re too worked up by the time they finally park. Dean feels like he’s crawling out of his skin with want for John. John hasn’t even fully put the car in park before Dean is opening the door and getting into the back seat. He pulls his already undone pants down to his ankles, where they’re stuck around his shoes, and positions himself as best he can on the seat, ass int he air, his arms braced against the opposite door, one knee on the seat and one leg extended as far as it can go into the foot well. 

There’s just enough room for John to mount him. He’d grabbed the small container of lube Dean stored in his go bag and slicked himself up while Dean got himself in position, and he pushes in too hard and too fast and too good almost immediately after getting in the back seat. He doesn’t check in with Dean, who’s keening with desire, he doesn’t work him open with his fingers. He just fucks into Dean exactly how John wants, and begins to rut. 

“My beautiful boy,” John says. “My gorgeous fucking bitch.”

It’s a strange sort of tone they set. Dean feels like an animal, like a dog, even with the position aside. He feels an inhuman need to be fucked by John, stronger than he’s felt with anyone else. Instinctual.

“John,” he gasps as he’s fucked into the window. “Need you.”

“Baby,” John says, running a hand up to Dean’s hair and grabbing. It’s not long enough to get a strong grip, but it suffices. John pulls back Dean’s head until he’s lifting himself up and back, balancing himself as best he can so he’s flush with his father’s torso. He looks back over his shoulder until John gets the hint and claims his mouth. 

“Tell me I’m good,” Dean says when they’ve parted. 

“You’re good, baby,” John says, nails digging into Dean’s hips. “You’re fucking golden.”

“Just want to be good for you.”

They don’t last long, but Dean figures they often don’t. Not when they’re this desperate for it. John comes first, spilling into Dean. Dean’s going to regret it later, John coming inside him, when his seed starts spilling out into his last remaining pair of clean underwear, and he has to live with the tackiness until they can get to a laundromat. But in the moment, Dean wouldn’t want it any other way. John stays inside him a moment longer, and then pulls out before he’s completely soft. He sits back against the seat, slapping Dean’s ass lightly, making Dean gasp. 

“Sit in my lap,” he tells Dean as he tucks himself back into his jeans. 

Dean does, keeping his back to John. He pulls his pants back up before he seats himself, knowing John wouldn’t want him to leak on his reasonably clean clothes. But he leaves his cock out. Once he’s sitting, John reaches his hand around to work Dean’s dick. 

He throws his head back to lean against John’s shoulder and humps into his hand. He listens to himself pant against the pleasure. 

“Like a bitch in heat,” John says into his ear. “Wish my dick was still inside you.”

“John,” murmurs Dean. 

“You always take me so sweet, baby,” John continues. “So hungry for it.”

Dean raises his arm and hooks it around John’s neck so he can kiss him while he fucks into his fist. 

“Was it as good as you thought it’d be?” he asks as he strokes. “Getting fucked in the Impala?”

Dean nods. 

“It’s been a long time since this car saw something so pretty as you taking my cock,” John adds. 

It takes Dean a minute to catch on. John, having sex with someone in this car. Dean doesn’t think he’d let a stranger mess up the interior, so then….The image comes unbidden of John laying Mary down along the very seat they’re sitting in.

“Jesus,” says Dean. 

“Figure it out, then?” asks John, laughing a little. “I took Mary in this backseat more than once. And she took me good, Dean, but she didn’t take me like you.”

Dean’s eyes flutter closed. John squeezes harder on his dick. It’s so fucked up, and he doesn’t soften at all. John hardly talks about Mary ever, let alone when he’s stroking Dean’s cock. Dean doesn’t know if turns him on more or less to think of his parents fucking in the same place John just raw’d him. 

John keeps talking. “No one takes it like you, Dean. No one’s so open, so easy, so fucking perfect.”

“Good,” Dean replies, breathless with the realization this is _working_ for him.

“Oh, yeah?” says John, pressing against the head. 

Dean nods. “I want to be the best you’ve ever had.”

John shuts his eyes. “Dean, you’ll always be my favorite.” Then he bites into Dean’s shoulder. 

Dean moans, high pitched and feminine, at the pleasure-pain. He’s getting close. 

“Tell me again,” he orders, but it’s really more of a beg. 

“You are the best I’ve ever had,” says John. “And you’ll always be my favorite.”

Dean’s going to come. He just needs one more thing. 

“In my mouth,” he says, unable to fully form the thought out loud. But John understands. He slips two of his fingers between Dean’s lips. 

“Take me,” his father says, pushing and pulling the digits in and out of Dean. They move in time with the hand on his cock. “Take me, and come.”

And Dean does. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you again for the commenters. words of affirmation are my love language, so they're appreciated. if there's interest, I have lots of other ideas for these two. some domestic fluff. a reconsideration of the first season with this backstory in mind. reconsideration of the 300th episode family reunion with this backstory in mind. some kinkier/more problematic scenes I cut to keep this at least a little less perverted than it could have been. if there's interest, im def open to not being done with this 'verse.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much for reading!
> 
> after a few days I reread this and felt it needed a little more work. nothing major has changed, but I think the dialog has improved and the tone as well. if you read it before and find your way back to it again, you might appreciate the changes, or you might not. who the fuck knows!

The next morning, John wakes up energized and focused. He gets Dean up early, grimacing at the mess in his boxers, and they pay their informant a visit and get the real location of the vampire nest. The whole thing’s wiped out within three hours of waking up, giving John and Dean the whole day to do what they want. It’s one of the better hunts they’ve had in a while, and Dean doesn’t want to say it’s all because he convinced John to fuck him the night before, but he doesn’t _not_ want to say it either. That breaking the rule let out the pressure. 

“So, that went well,” he says lightly as they drive away from the burning vamp’s nest. 

“Famous last words,” snorts John. 

“I’m just saying,” replies Dean, looking sideways at John. “We were pretty calm about it, you know? I think that helped. Not feeling so...turned up.”

“Fuck off,” says John, catching Dean’s meaning, but he’s smiling. 

“Fine,” agrees Dean, revelling in this more playful version of his father. “As long as we’re getting ready to stop and do some laundry. I’m dying over here, Dad.”

John’s smile softens. “I’d say sorry, but I’m not.”

“Okay, now you can fuck off,” says Dean. It comes out of his mouth too easily, too lightly. He freezes, knowing John's not going to like that. 

But John just keeps smiling. 

“Let’s find a laundromat,” he says. “And then find somewhere to stay for a few days.”

They find a place to start washing their clothes, and get a load started. Then John takes off to find them a motel while Dean keeps an eye on their things. He’s loading up the dryer by the time John gets back. 

“I’m so ready for a shower,” he grumbles, pulling at his pants. He’d pulled off the boxers in the laundromat bathroom, but hadn’t had any pants to replace the ones he’d currently been wearing. He expects John to make some kind of comment about how Dean smells, but is disappointed. John seems quieter since having returned from whatever motel he found. Dean frowns. “You good.”

“Fine, Dean,” he says firmly, avoiding Dean’s eyes, and Dean sits up a little straighter at the tone. 

They sit in a silence Dean doesn’t really understand. But he gets at least that John doesn’t want to talk, so Dean doesn’t make him. They wait for their clothes to dry, each in their own heads, the quiet stretching over the minutes. When the machines finally finish, Dean jumps up to collect their things. John puts down the newspaper he’d manifested from god-knows-where and makes to get up, but Dean stops him. 

“I got it,” he tells John with an easy smile. He doesn’t know how to help his father when he’s like this, except to start doing things for him. He takes twenty minutes to roughly fold up their clothes while John waits out in the Impala, anxious to be gone, and then packs them into the trunk. 

John drives them to the motel after, and with him already checked in, they can head straight to the room so Dean can have his long-awaited shower. He moans happily once John shuts the door behind him, bending over to unlace his boots and toe them off, and then yank off his socks. His hands work at his belt buckle. 

“Let me,” says John, dropping his bag to the ground with a heavy thunk. He walks up to Dean, hands going to his waist. 

“Okay,” says Dean, leaning into him. This isn’t a turn he expected. He wonders if John is going to try to fuck him again, as is their routine when they first land in their room. He’s not really up for anything, but he lets himself go a little pliant against his father to let him know he’s open to it, even if he feels disgusting. But all John does is pull down Dean’s pants and then pull off his jacket and shirt. 

“Now undress me,” he says, taking a half step back from Dean. He doesn’t sound quite like himself. He’s telling Dean what to do, which is normal, but there’s a hint of hesitation, like he’s not sure this is what he should be asking for. 

Dean decides to go slow, in case John changes his mind. He starts with John’s boots, kneeling naked on the floor to unlace them and guide John’s feet out of them. Then he pulls off John’s socks, stuffing them in his discarded boots, before moving on to his pants. 

“Still okay?” Dean asks quietly. 

Above him, John nods. “I’ll tell you if it’s not.”

Dean unbuckles his belt, unbuttons his button, unzips his zipper. He hooks his fingers into John’s boxer-briefs and pulls them down with his jeans. He pulls them down slowly, letting them drag against John’s skin. And then when John steps out of them, Dean retraces the path with his hands, slowly raising them up, up, up. He lets his fingertips skate over John’s ass, considering John’s dick. It’s soft and peachy, nestled in his dark pubic hair. Dean rests his cheek against it, and asks, “Do you want me to…?”

But John shakes his head. “Stand up, Dean. Take off my shirt.”

Dean obeys, undoing the buttons and sliding the material off John’s shoulder. He pulls at the tee-shirt, tugging it over his father’s head. It’s the last article of clothing, leaving them both naked in the middle of the room. Dean waits for John to take him in his arms, claim his mouth, lead him to the bed. _Something_. But nothing happens.

“Let’s get cleaned up and get some sleep. Take the first shower,” he tells Dean quietly. 

Dean nods, uneasy for a reason he can’t name. 

He takes his shower quickly, mindful that John still needs to take his. He washes his hair, scrubbing at his skin, cleaning up what uncomfortable evidence remains from the night before and the hunt that morning. He wonders if John is watching him through the open door, but doesn’t let himself look back to check. When he comes out, he finds John sitting on the bed watching him after all. Dean joins him, toweling at his hair.

“Feel better?” John asks.

“Much,” confirms Dean, relieved to be clean again. “Now I’m just beat.”

John stands from the bed. “Get some rest. I’ll join you when I’m done.” 

He walks into the bathroom, leaving the door open as Dean had. Dean tosses his towel aside and gets under the covers of the bed, then he turns to watch John shower. John keeps his back to Dean, focused on the task at hand, and Dean wonders at his mood, at the shift. He’s not sure he’s ever seen this version of John before, and he doesn’t know what to make of him. 

The emotional geographies of John Winchester are still very much a mystery to Dean. He thinks he understands the landscape a little better now, where he’ll find the fault lines of John’s temper. But even with the insights, he still can’t predict the quakes. Still can’t predict when John will fall back in on himself, on old ways and habits that isolate himself from Dean. And when these ruptures happen, Dean still hasn’t mastered the response. Does he touch John, or leave him? Remove or increase the space between them both? John’s needs are inconsistent, and Dean’s found it’s equally helpful when John’s in a mood to take a walk as it is to take out John’s cock.

That said, the John showering now is unfamiliar. The uncertainty of his words, the low-grade agitation. Dean stares at him as he bathes and hopes John will settle after some sleep. They need to eat, too, he knows. But sleep first. Dean starts listing what’ll need to happen when they wake up--a trip to the store for beer and snacks, the car needs a wash, grabbing some lunch or dinner, depending on how long they sleep--and as he builds his to-dos he watches his father.

John is beautiful in the shower. Dean’s always thought him handsome, lightly muscled and tall. Hair thick on his chest, trailing over his stomach. John doesn’t generally like it when Dean takes the time to admire his body, though he has no problem taking in Dean’s. Opportunities like this, when John is on full display and Dean is allowed to just _look_ without interruption, are rare, so he takes advantage of the view. He lets himself remember all the times before when he saw John like this but couldn’t touch.

He watches as John rinses away grit and sweat with the soap, hands skating across his skin, never lingering, like he doesn’t like to touch. He turns the shower off as soon as he’s finished, and steps out to dry himself quickly before rejoining Dean. 

“Spying on me?” he says as he wipes beads of water from his skin. 

“You left the door open,” Dean replies, voice thickening with fatigue. 

John doesn’t say anything back. He climbs into the bed. 

“Everything good?” Dean chances on the off chance John feels like talking. 

“Stop asking, Dean,” says John tightly, and Dean can’t stop his sigh. Neither one of them knows how to say shit about anything. 

They lay in the bed in silence, Johns front to Dean’s back. Dean wants to touch him, but he isn’t sure he’d be welcome. John still seems so prickly and unsure. 

Dean tries and fails to make himself sleep.

“I shouldn’t have brought up Mary,” John says suddenly. “I shouldn’t have done that. She was your mother. I should have honored her better.”

Dean thinks immediately of the night before. Of John saying, _And she took me good, Dean, but she didn’t take me like you._ So this is what’s bothering his father.

Dean thinks about it for the first time since it happened, and realizes he’s come to have two versions of Mary in his head: his mother, and his predecessor. John’s first wife, where Dean has slowly, uncomfortably, and blissfully become his second.

He turns to face his father. He runs a hand down John’s face. “We still do love her,” he whispers. “She would want us to be happy.”

“Not like this.”

That’s true, Dean knows. No one would want this for them. But--

“I don’t care,” he confesses. “I like this. I like being close to you like this. I like making you feel good. It makes _me_ feel good.” He looks away, vexxed. “I’m tired of feeling bad about this.”

John’s eyes search his face, but he says nothing. 

Dean speaks again. “Who are we trying to measure up to, Dad? Whose standard are we trying to meet?”

John shakes his head. “If my father had touched me the way I touch you, I would have killed him.”

Dean takes John’s hand and places it on his cheek. “You’re not your father, and I’m not you. It doesn’t bother me that this is how we show love.”

“It’s wrong,” says John. “It’s wrong to say,” he struggles with the words. “It’s wrong to say what I said.”

Dean’s eyes shut at the memory. He tries to feel bad about coming to the thought that he takes John’s cock better than Mary did. But he just doesn’t. He tries to help John understand. 

“She’s not _Mom_ to me in those moments. She’s just Mary, your first wife.”

John scoffs. “And what? You’re my second?”

Dean holds John’s wrist where it rests by his face. He turns to nuzzle into the hand still on his cheek, kissing the palm. “Maybe,” he whispers, his deepest secret. “I could be.”

“Fucking Christ, Dean,” John sighs, but he leaves his hand where it is. “You’re my _son_.”

“And you’re my father, but…” it’s reckless to talk back, but the need to be heard out is overwhelming. “But why can’t you be something else, too?” He shakes his head, frustrated. “Hasn’t it been easy to be more?”

If there’s a Hell, Dean’s spot was reserved long ago after the first time he took a life. The first time he let some stranger fuck him behind some roadhouse. The first time he got drunk and touched himself while thinking about John. And if he’s being honest, he hardly thinks John’s a saint either, though he’d never breathe a word of that thought out loud. At least what they have isn’t hurting anyone, not really. 

He moves even closer to John, throwing a leg over John’s waist. “Let me be with you like this. Let me be your--” _wife! partner! lover! son!_ “--whatever you want to call it. I don’t care. But let us have this.”

John wraps an arm around Dean’s torso and pulls him even nearer, burying his face in Dean’s throat and kissing there. It’s not sexual yet, despite their position. It’s just desperate. 

“I’m so fucking tired,” John murmurs against the skin there. 

Dean thinks this is how John gives in. This is how he asks for relief. Holding Dean and being vulnerable. Even without John saying it, Dean knows John’s acquiescing. 

“Then stop fighting it,” he says into the dampness of John’s hair.

“Okay,” John whispers, and Dean hums with pleasure, eyes momentarily closing.

“But, Dad,” he says, waiting for John to look up at him. “John. This pattern we have...it’s not working. Hunting, hunting, hunting. Fucking, fucking, fucking. It was good, wasn’t it? Touching each other before the hunt was done?”

Under the covers, Dean feels John begin to move ever so lightly against him as the desperation turns to something hungrier. “Can’t wait for this anymore?” he thrusts pointedly.

Dean resists the urge to start moving back against him until he says the last of his piece. “I don’t _want_ to. I saw how it made you feel. You can’t pretend fucking me in the backseat of the Impala didn’t feel good. Didn’t help you focus the next day.”

“You’re right,” John says. “Okay? You’re fucking right.” Then he claims Dean’s mouth. 

Dean lets the kiss linger for just a moment before pulling back. “I don’t want to be your... _whatever_ sometimes,” he says, breathless. He can’t keep his hips from starting to hump lightly against John now. “I want to be it all the time. I want you to trust me like this all the time. I won’t disobey you on the job, I promise. I’ll always be good.”

He can tell John is losing patience with the conversation. The rhythm of his hips is increasing, his eyes becoming more glassy. He’s going to fuck Dean, Dean can tell. They won’t be sleeping just yet. 

“You’re still my son,” he says. 

“Always,” Dean agrees, moving against John. “I can be more than one thing for you.”

John moves then, spreading Dean’s legs to make room for himself. “You’ve always been more than one thing for me.”

“Anything for you, John,” Dean agrees as John reaches for the lube that always makes its way over to the nightstand once they land in a new motel room. 

He preps Dean quickly, so much more skilled since his first efforts. Dean watches John penetrate him with his fingers and feels no shame in what they do. He loves the intimacy too much to feel bad about it. He loves that he has someone like John to take care of him, that he can help take care of someone like John. 

“Are you ready?” his father asks.

He doesn’t usually. Normally he doesn’t need to, with his growing ability to loosen Dean quickly. And that’s part of it--the way John does to Dean whatever he wants. But Dean appreciates the question today. 

“Take me slow?” he asks, shy. He wants to ask John to make love to him, but he’s too afraid of the rebuke. 

“However you want it,” John says, leaning down to kiss him. “I want it to be good for you.”

Dean thrills at the words, flushing with pleasure. “It’s always good,” he says. “You always make me feel so good.”

He feels John line himself up with his hole and begin to press in. Dean’s arms circle around John’s neck as they kiss, his father entering him seamlessly. 

“This feels right,” Dean murmurs. “It’s always felt right to have you inside me.”

John fucks into Dean slowly, every purposeful drag pressing against Dean’s prostate and making him gasp. 

“This slow enough for you?”

“Yes, John,” says Dean, wrapping his legs around John’s waist. “Feels so good.”

They take their time, a rare occurrence. Dean loves their desperate fucking with all he has, but something about John making them work for their orgasm, allowing the time and space to feel each other so thoroughly, puts Dean in a completely different world of sensation. 

Dean doesn’t know much time passes before he feels his orgasm begin to build to it’s finale. His hips start rolling faster, begging John to speed up. John, sensing Dean’s sudden hurry, pushes his torso up so there’s room for Dean to fist his cock. 

“You going to come, Dean?” he asks breathlessly.

“Yes, Daddy.”

“You look so beautiful when you do.” 

_Fuck_. Dean clenches around John, “You think I’m pretty?” 

John smiles at him, feral. He lets out a shaky, heavy breath. “The prettiest bitch I’ve ever seen.”

Dean’s eyes close. 

“I love you so much, John.” He’s so, so close. 

“God, _Dean_.”

He’s fucking into Dean with forceful, final thrusts. The slap of his skin against Dean’s is driving him mad. 

“I’m going to come,” Dean keens. 

“Come for me, baby.”

Dean spills into his hand with a strangled moan, eyes rolling back, lips parting wantonly. 

John fucks into him with abandon now. “Want to taste you,” he says as his hips piston. 

Dean raises his palm, covered in his seed, to John’s mouth. John licks and sucks at the mess, and as he does, Dean feels him begin to come inside of him. Their intimacy becomes circular, John taking Dean inside him, Dean taking John. 

When John finishes, he works his arms around Dean so they’re embracing, Deans’s arms back around John’s neck. They cling to one another, dropping kisses on each other’s faces and it’s so sweet and good. 

Dean knows this isn’t what they’re supposed to do. He knows it isn’t what Sam or Mary or Bobby would want. 

He also knows he’s never felt better. His relationship with John is strange and complicated, and that hasn’t changed in the months since they’ve added sex to their time together. But for all the things they struggle to say to one another, the touch of skin against skin, lips against lips, communicates enough. 

John is never going to be easy to live with. Easy to love. But Dean thinks of how much more he understands his father now, and finds he doesn’t mind about the rest. No one understands John like he does. No one knows how to love him like he does. Is it right? Is it good? Dean doesn’t know, really, but it _feels_ right and good. Like what he’s meant to do. 

His kisses John’s forehead, slick and shiny with sweat. They need to get up and clean up. Dean’s cum is sticking between them, tacky and soon-to-itch. But for the moment he’s happy to hold and be held. 

He thinks about Sam, who Dean raised with John, and wishes he could talk to him. He thinks maybe, just maybe, if he texts Sam he’ll get a response. He’ll try later that day, he promises himself. He doesn’t think he’ll tell John. Not yet. 

When John slips out, Dean expects him to leave the bed, but he doesn’t. He moves to Dean’s side, one arm still over Dean’s stomach. Dean fits an arm under John’s neck so John can lay his head on Dean’s chest, and they finally sleep, mess and all. 

Dean wouldn’t have it any other way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know things got a bit saccharine at the end there, but I hope you guys liked the ending.
> 
> as I said in the previous chapter, I have a lot of other ideas if there're readers for it. anything in particular you'd like to see from dean and John in this verse or outside of it? and if not, thanks for reading my first foray into this mess of a ship!


End file.
